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11th September 2010, 01:44 PM | #1161 |
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11th September 2010, 03:58 PM | #1162 |
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It would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to support the contention that Native Americans in any century were considerably shorter in stature than any invading people from Europe.
http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/tallind.htm [In the 1800s] The average adult male Plains Indian [Cheyenne, Sioux, Blackfeet and Comanche] stood 172.6 centimeters tall -- about 5 feet 8 inches. The next tallest people in the world at that time were Australian men, who averaged 172 centimeters. European American men of the time averaged 171 centimeters tall, and men living in European countries were typically several centimeters shorter.I realize this does not address the height of other, non-Plains tribes in other centuries, but that information is either unavailable generally, or only on the internet. |
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11th September 2010, 05:43 PM | #1163 |
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Well, I did not say that all tribes were short, nor did I say that the average European was tall, nor did I say that anyone was in poor health. If you look at the Algonkian legend of the "Yahoo" or tall hairy woman, that legend originated from interaction with a single tall hairy individual human woman. Further, if you restrict me to non-internet sources, I am screwed, because I am not privileged to have your printed sources. I respect your knowledge obviously, but the relatively tall Sioux/Lakota do not have a tradition of a living bigfoot, amirite? perhaps there is a reason there.
Now, from my internet google, the first tribe I thought of, for obvious reasons, was the Inuit; this source says they average 5-4. They have a supposed bigfoot tradition, that being the Tornit. However, if you read the translated, transcribed story about the Tornit, it turns out they are just a neighboring tribe of tall humans. So, I will concede that my hypothetical may miss the mark of reality by 2 inches, I hope you will grant me that it IS a hypothetical, and as stated, with or without the 2 inches, it is not '"off in left field." I do think this is an important topic and I appreciate your expertise; the more accurate the better. The other really important aspect of this is the issue of translation. The most obvious example is the fact that the type specimen, if you will, of the bigfoot phenomenon was the mis-translated "Abominable Snowman." Arguably, without that mistranslation, which captured the imagination, we wouldn't be typing away today. If you have studied tribal languages you know that their words are often not translatable one to one into English, that gesture and body language can greatly modify, and that half-baked translations were frequent, and the results sometimes comical, sometimes tragic. Attempted translations and transcriptions by unsophisticated, untrained, sometimes amateur Anglos, who may have a stake in creating a colorful story, are usually as much a source of confusion as enlightenment. And let's face, tribal persons sometimes have a motivation to tell a colorful story. So when I read the Anglo words, I try to think the thoughts and the linguistic barriers that created the words, not just the stuff on the page. Scientific? or Reality? |
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11th September 2010, 06:12 PM | #1164 |
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11th September 2010, 06:12 PM | #1165 |
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Please do not allow me to pretend to any kind of "expertise" in Native American studies. It's an area I've only recently begin to examine with any kind of earnestness. I did not mean to indicate otherwise. I only found the link I posted from a yahoo search on "Native American height".
Chiefly I was responding to your statement, "a 6 foot man might have been a 'giant' to a tribe of 5ft 2 inchers," as though it were a blanket assertion about the population of North America at the time of the Spanish invasion, rather than a hypothetical and non-specific opinion. Apologies for any confusion. My anthropological knowledge is rather broad, not at all specialized, and tends toward the paleo- side of things. I know next to nothing about NA languages, but I like your conjecture about mistranslation being at the heart of the development of "American Snowman" beliefs. |
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11th September 2010, 06:43 PM | #1166 |
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in 1958, a study of Eskimo men in the Alaska national guard found they averaged 5 5 and 145 lb. PDF google An Appraisal of the Health and Nutritional Status of the Eskimo.
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12th September 2010, 11:39 AM | #1167 |
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12th September 2010, 02:15 PM | #1168 |
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Until better evidence is provided, the best solution to the PGF is that it is a man in a suit. -Astrophotographer. 2 prints, 1 trackway, same 'dermals'? 'Unfortunately no' says Meldrum. I want to see bigfoot throw a pig... Is that wrong? -LTC8K6 |
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13th September 2010, 10:17 AM | #1169 |
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Thanks for your concern!!
The issue wasn't how many sasquatch reports originate in the Arctic Circle. The issue was about tribal people who are alleged to have bigfoot legends, and how these legends might have arisen. The Inuit are one of those tribes. The terminology "Eskimo" is sometimes used as a catchall for Inuits and related tribes. Further, they live in many parts of Alaska, not just that part of the state which is above the Arctic Circle. I am skeptical about tribal legends being used to support the idea of a bigfoot as some sort of non-human primate. |
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24th September 2010, 06:19 PM | #1170 |
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Reposting from the BFF...
My goal as a skeptic and writer on the subject of Bigfoot is to deal with specific claims. Two of the specific claims I have written about over the years are concerning the PGF showing a real Bigfoot, and native myths and traditions featuring Bigfoot. I love the Bigfoot myth. I love it as a myth, not as a biological species. I would be ecstatic for that to be the case, but I see the evidence of a social construct no different than Reptoids, alien abduction, Dogman, etc. I think it is pseudoscience to teach people these things are real without proof. For Reptoids, Dogman, Bigfoot or any other fortean zooform that means type specimen. That's the way we've done it since Linnaeus, and anyone who wants us to lower the standards of science and imperical knowledge now so that we can accommodate belief in Bigfoot, I think are misinformed. When my son goes to biology class when he is older, until Bigfoot is on a slab somewhere, I do not want any teacher telling him about Bigfoot in our woods, other than in the context of discussing real science and pseudoscience. There is a thread here that discusses people who can no longer enter the woods for fear of Bigfoot. To their credit, there are a number who claim to have witnessed or interacted with Bigfoot that have no such fear. For others, Bigfoot is this awesome demongodlike thing that will go berserk and tear you up and squish the leftovers under massive foot. This is tragic to me that anyone should feel fear for their lives when entering nature. I can't speak to the specifics of every person that feels that way, but I can say that people do experience very scary things that scares the crap out of them, but they did not actually occur, or they did occur, but not as the person thought. The idea that Bigfoot lives now and has lived across North America for thousands of years, yet we do not have a type specimen, and indeed be a well studied species now as gorillas, chimps, and orangutans are is absurd to me. That is not to say that people who do believe such a thing are stupid. I once strongly believed in Bigfoot and I wasn't stupid then. I simply did not have enough information in hand to discern what is the full situation in hand. The way for me to do that was simple: I examine specific claims to see if they have any merit, and I continue spending lots of time in the habitat where Bigfoot is said to live. My contention here is this: If Bigfoot lived across North America and did such things as take food from native tribes and even occasionally abduct children, I don't care how nasty some people think Bigfoot is, that monkey is going to die. That monkey os going to wind up somebody's rug, or cloak, or necklace, etc. I just wrote the following in my PGF thread... If Bigfoot is out there across North America and being in our places of recreation and living and working, it is going to wind up dead after coming into contact with us. The people who I think have gone to far with fortean ideas and see Bigfoot as some near godlike thing in the forest that would shake off bullet wounds and any attack a human could make are just not thinking rationally to me. We are humans and we are badass. We're not always badass, but whether it's here and now with the Western domination of North America, or before that with the countless native cultures, we have always had groups of badass humans. They could bring down mammoths, polar bears, brown bears, etc with little more than brains and spears and lances. Want to take down a mammoth? Use fear, a cliff, and some spears. Want a whale? Get some boats and some harpoons. Want a polar bear? Spears and team work. We are badass. We are phyically weak, but with our massive brains we make up for it and we go out across the globe and annihilate whatever messes with us. Bigfoot could not contend with our badass ways, nor could it remain safe from our badassness across North America for hundreds of years. Bigfoot would show up, try to take our food or yoink one of our kids, and wham, Bigfoot is a rug. I want to talk about badass natives. Tribes of humans in North America that would take a big monkey down to Chinatown if they messed with them at all. First let's look at some specific badasses... Badass #1 - Iroquois warrior: http://warandgame.files.wordpress.co...warrior_sm.jpg That guy and his homies live smack in the middle of alleged Bigfoot territory. Northeastern United States and Eastern Canada was their turf. Any giant monkey that messes with those badasses will wind up a decorative showpiece. Let's see what they have in the arsenal to make some monkey salad with... http://www.catesdesigngroup.com/images/weapons_01.jpg Ouch. Those look sharp. If I were a hungry monkey with a hankering for human kid legs, I would think twice before trying to yoink one and mess with those badasses. And more... http://webprojects.prm.ox.ac.uk/arms...1884.12.34.jpg Yep. I don't care how big your sagittal crest is, mess with the Iroquois or the Huron and you're asking for your head to be made a pastey soup. Badass #2 - Blackfoot warrior: http://www.blackfootcrossing.ca/imag...bearshield.jpg He doesn't look like one to mess with. The Blackfeet or Blackfoot roamed the plains and woodlands of Montana and Alberta. They were badass and the mighty buffalo was one of their main quarry. I would say him and ten of his brothers could make some mean monkey salad. Let's see some of their tongs with which to toss that mean monkey salad... http://ushistoryimages.com/images/in...-weapons-4.jpg Those are just an example of some of the things the Blackfeet might use. If I was a 7 ft monkey, and I wanted to keep my funky hide in one piece, I would not ever mess with the Blackfeet. If you think Bigfoot and the Blackfoot would never meet, think again. They did not live only on the plains. The lived in places such as this... http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ot_teepees.jpg And this.... http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3193/...97bc9096_z.jpg Badass #3 - Chiricahua Apache Warrior: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...keitz-ogie.jpg Bob Gimlin is 1/4 Chiricahua Apache. Let's see something they might use to take out a Bigfoot with... http://i.ehow.com/images/a04/ba/g8/a...ls-200X200.jpg These people have traditionally lived in New Mexico, Arizona, and in norther Sonora in Mexico. This is there turf... http://www.soenyun.com/Blog/wp-conte...chise-head.jpg Badass #4 - Shawnee warrior: http://michaeljtaylor.com/images/OIL...20Counting.jpg Historical painting description...
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That painting is of a dude from a tribe that historically have inhabited Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia, Western Maryland, Kentucky, Indiana, and Pennsylvania. I think i covered about six major Bigfoot research organizations there. Let's see how the Shawnee would toss their mean monkey salad... http://www.nativeworkshop.com/images...ntballclub.jpg And this... http://www.hbforge.com/images/shawneehawk_260x110.jpg And this... http://www.furtrade.org/3collct/pics...20TECUMSEH.jpg Hello, Boss of the Woods. How are you today? Put down the child and back away slowly or me and 12 of my Shawnee brothers here are going to hack your feet of, strap you to a pole, disembowel you, and cut of your eyelids while you die in slow agaony. I understand that some people will say that the badasses I am showing are in places that is not prime tradition Bigfoot habitat re: PNW. To that I would say I hope you don't throw your New York State, Ohio, Arizona counterparts under the bus, so to speak, but let's get really on target... Badass #5: Tlingit warrior: http://www.civilization.ca/cmc/exhib...s/nwcah17b.jpg Now, that is a painting of a Tlingit warrior in a war canoe with rifle, dagger, helmet, and armour going to raid another village. The Tlingit lived in the PNW here... http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...lingit-map.png That painting "Raven Warrior" is from 1991 by Bill Holm. Here is the description...
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These people we have been told by Hairy Man and other had Bigfoot in their culture. Here are some of their arsenal with which to make mean monkey salad... http://webprojects.prm.ox.ac.uk/arms.../1921.53.3.jpg http://s7d2.scene7.com/is/image/Sothebys/N08554-77-lr-1?$lot_main$ http://forensicfashion.com/files/180...ggerAMNH01.JPG Those people were badass and had no problem slaughtering other humans. One Bigfoot comes and tries to yoink one of their kids, and that Bigfoot is going to end up dead. That's because people in the PNW had things like this... http://www.alaskanartifacts.com/Typo...tedLance_1.jpg And gear like this... http://www.civilization.ca/cmc/exhib...s/havwa02b.jpg And most important of all, this... http://www.thelatestnews.in/wp-conte...uman-brain.jpg With these things natives killed everything over the ages from other people, to polar bears, to whales, to brown bears, to mammoths. They made artifcats from them that are here today and in collections around the world. Not one of these artifacts is a Bigfoot pelt, bone, or tooth. What I am arguing is that if Bigfoot did in fact live from Alaska to Ohio to New York to Arizona, etc, and it did do the things that people are saying they do, like stealing food and yoinking kids, we would have physical evidence of Bigfoot in the form of artifacts actually coming from Bigfoot physically. If Bigfoot is a social construct, something like a combination of the woodwoses and troll Western Civilization brought, and the human/animal hybrid boogeymen that natives had which feature animalistic qualities, which humans around the world do, we would never have anything physical. All we would have a myriad of tales that you need to cherry pick to get something like our current conception of Bigfoot from. The problem there is that there is not even consensus now on what exactly Bigfoot is and how it looks. |
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Until better evidence is provided, the best solution to the PGF is that it is a man in a suit. -Astrophotographer. 2 prints, 1 trackway, same 'dermals'? 'Unfortunately no' says Meldrum. I want to see bigfoot throw a pig... Is that wrong? -LTC8K6 |
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25th September 2010, 02:06 AM | #1171 |
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Bigfoot has Indian sense. He can tell when Indians are coming that want to hurt him.
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1st October 2010, 02:35 PM | #1172 |
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Page 187 of Steward's Fork: a sustainable future for the Klamath Mountains by James K. Agee offers some great notes on why certain Native American myths that don't equal Bigfoot.
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1st October 2010, 04:08 PM | #1173 |
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One of the most frequent problems in understanding tribal legends is translation, and even the words require interpretation. The Arikara had animal entities in their medicine ceremony, and one of the animals was hwat kusu, literally "foot big" or "big foot."
However, the meaning of hwat kusu is "duck." I've always chuckled at that. |
7th October 2010, 06:46 AM | #1174 |
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Puk-wud-jie is Delaware for "wild men of the forest or game-keeper..." Watch the short explanatory video.
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Bigfoot believers and Bigfoot skeptics are both plumb crazy. Each spends more than one minute per year thinking about Bigfoot. |
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7th October 2010, 09:13 AM | #1175 |
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7th October 2010, 11:42 AM | #1176 |
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You seem to be overlooking the fact that more than a few tribes had hang ups about even hunting bear because they were too close to human in their belief system, squatchy seems to often fall into a similar context. Your suggestions above are a wee bit of an oversimplication.
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7th October 2010, 02:44 PM | #1177 |
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Mikey, for the sake of my iPhone and my thumbs could you please not quote kitakaze's posts in their entirety. Thanks.
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7th October 2010, 03:11 PM | #1178 |
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Open your mind and let the sun shine in. Let a wild hairy ape in there too, would you please? - William Parcher You can fool too many of the people too much of the time. - James Thurber |
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7th October 2010, 03:19 PM | #1179 |
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If a young Indian found a huge Bigfoot skull and brought it into the village would the elders just get rid of it? Does that explain the lack of such found objects?
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Bigfoot believers and Bigfoot skeptics are both plumb crazy. Each spends more than one minute per year thinking about Bigfoot. |
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7th October 2010, 03:59 PM | #1180 |
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" Taboo", "looks too human" and blah.
"Taboo". .. Seems they were made to be broken. "Looks too human"... What a lame excuse. Humans have been killing other humans since the dawn of times. So, why wouldn't they (we) kill something that just looks a bit like a human? |
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11th October 2010, 08:14 AM | #1181 |
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Which ones?
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Do these tribes have totems or other drawn or carved representations of bears? Did these tribes ever collect bear skulls or other parts from found carcasses?
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Quote:
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11th October 2010, 08:35 AM | #1182 |
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11th October 2010, 01:01 PM | #1183 |
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"I dont call that evolution, I call that the survival of the fittest." - Bulletmaker "I thought skeptics would usually point towards a hoax rather than a group being duped." - makaya325 Kit is not a skeptic. He is a former Bigfoot believer that changed his position to that of non believer.- Crowlogic |
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11th October 2010, 02:09 PM | #1184 |
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There are Bigfoot believers who say that many or most tribes had names for and described Bigfoot... because they directly encountered Bigfoot in their local environment. Think about the potential opportunities packaged in many thousands of years and hundreds of thousands (millions?) of young Indians who could have found that huge Bigfoot skull and brought it into the village. By golly, there could have been thousands of such skulls dragged into encampments. They discarded all of them? Not a single one accounted for as an artifact now. We have even excavated Indian trash and junk piles where they discarded stuff. Nothing related to Bigfoot has been found.
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Bigfoot believers and Bigfoot skeptics are both plumb crazy. Each spends more than one minute per year thinking about Bigfoot. |
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11th October 2010, 02:40 PM | #1185 |
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footer would say, they were taught from a young age not to mess with BF parts. It would bestow a curse of vengeful BF on their tribe.
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"I dont call that evolution, I call that the survival of the fittest." - Bulletmaker "I thought skeptics would usually point towards a hoax rather than a group being duped." - makaya325 Kit is not a skeptic. He is a former Bigfoot believer that changed his position to that of non believer.- Crowlogic |
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18th August 2013, 06:41 PM | #1186 |
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18th August 2013, 06:50 PM | #1187 |
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"considered" as in past-tense? as in.. Native Americans?
No, Chris, see the thread EHocking linked on the previous page. There is absolutely no credible connection with native legends and modern Bigfoot. I'm sure you've read that thread too, though. Besides, locals where I live consider bigfoot a "joke" not, "hairy people" .. so .. |
18th August 2013, 06:55 PM | #1188 |
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Is that why they haven't been killed Chris? Because they are protected by the locals such as yourself in the past who understood that they are more akin to "hairy people" ?
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18th August 2013, 07:53 PM | #1189 |
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Actually, I did read the first page of 40 posts. If Kitakaze's presentation convinced you there is no credible connection with native legends and Bigfoot, that's good for you.
IMO, I think suggesting that no culture or group of people, Native American or others elsewhere in the World have ever recorded a belief of a half man half animal being is quite possibly the best example of skeptical critical thinking I have witnessed here to date. My goodness, the logic is flawless. Are you serious? Please say you're joking |
18th August 2013, 08:02 PM | #1190 |
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Were there any Bigfoot denialists among the Native Americans. Did the knowers present bodies to show the doubters that they were wrong?
Did they have any mythical animals at all - and for those did they have believers/knowers vs skeptic/denialists? How did those Indians settle demands for proof amongst themselves and how does it relate to the present day situation with Bigfootery? |
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Bigfoot believers and Bigfoot skeptics are both plumb crazy. Each spends more than one minute per year thinking about Bigfoot. |
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18th August 2013, 08:03 PM | #1191 |
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18th August 2013, 08:20 PM | #1192 |
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On second thought, don't. Bring it up in that thread if you'd like to discuss it, I believe that would be off-topic for this thread.
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18th August 2013, 08:38 PM | #1193 |
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Here's why that's circular reasoning. Let's allow for the sake of discussion that some American tribe has legends of hairy people. (That's not currently evidence, but it seems plausible. No extraordinary evidence required.)
But here's the snag: You don't know that the animals this unnamed tribe identify as "hairy people" are bigfoots. These "hairy people" might be bears, wolverines, raccoons, or another tribe of human beings. Or they might be folkloric animals such as the Thunderbird or the River Panther, both Native American legendary (and non-existent) animals. Do you see where we're going with this, Chris? |
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18th August 2013, 08:44 PM | #1194 |
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This is a strawman, since that was NOT the what that thread discussed.
The thread was discussing if there were any myths or legends that described bigfoot. Quite a number that were discussed were man/animal myths.
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No one on the thread suggested that "no culture or group of people, Native American or others elsewhere in the World have ever recorded a belief of a half man half animal". Whereas the posts in that thread read and analysed historical and contemporary records of native American myths and legends, your post is merely unsupported opinion, as underlined by this (partial) statement; "IMO, I think suggesting that..."Please resurrect the thread and tear the logic in it to pieces if you can, but you will have to do better than just dismissing the arguments because they disagree with your belief system. |
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18th August 2013, 09:16 PM | #1195 |
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Wow, someone in another thread was complaining that people misuse/overuse the term "strawman" around here. Well, if any of you are confused by the term, what we have here is a textbook example of a strawman. Somehow "there are no native legends about bigfoot" gets transformed into "there are no legends about hybrid creatures" purely for the sake of shooting the latter argument down.
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18th August 2013, 09:28 PM | #1196 |
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Guys, to argue that all Native peoples could not have any reference to hairy "men" or "people" is unwinnable for either side. Since I have no first hand study of all Native languages, I'm not qualified to know all details of every culture and belief structure on the planet and I don't think anyone else is either.
It is a common theme though for most native cultures to have some sort of man beast type thingy ingrained in their belief structure. That's Worldwide. (check it out for yourself) One would have to dismiss all to sink the putt. That's not likely to happen. One could also argue that these beliefs could be remnant memories passed down from cultural clashes of two differing species. I'm not interested in opening it up, the only path is opinion swapping. |
18th August 2013, 09:33 PM | #1197 |
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18th August 2013, 09:46 PM | #1198 |
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Where did I say anything about Native language or culture (outside of quotation marks)? You're the one that switched from talking about legends of bigfoot to general legends of animal/human hybrids. If you want to know more about legends, go back to the thread where such claims were discussed. I'm not not making any claims about the legends--merely pointing out a gigantic hole in your argument. A hole that has nothing to do with its premise.
If you can't construct a sound argument (no matter how shaky its premises might be), you're never going to get anywhere around here. |
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"Those who learn from history are doomed to watch others repeat it." -- Anonymous Slashdot poster "The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore." -- James Nicoll |
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18th August 2013, 09:50 PM | #1199 |
Illuminator
Join Date: Jun 2012
Posts: 4,153
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That's my point. There can be no sound argument about Native legends/beliefs, as I pointed out above:
"It is a common theme though for most native cultures to have some sort of man beast type thingy ingrained in their belief structure. That's Worldwide. (check it out for yourself) One would have to dismiss all to sink the putt. That's not likely to happen." |
18th August 2013, 10:12 PM | #1200 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: Directly under a deadly chemtrail
Posts: 21,423
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What a fool believes, no wise man has the power to reason away. What seems to be, is always better than nothing. 2 prints, same midtarsal crock..., I mean break? |
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