http://gondwanaland.com/mlog/2005/12/28/1491/ My opinions only. I do not represent any organization in this publication. Sun, 23 Nov 2008 20:35:59 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.2 http://gondwanaland.com/mlog/2005/12/28/1491/#comment-54233 Mike Linksvayer » Schoeck’s Envy Sat, 25 Nov 2006 04:20:10 +0000 http://gondwanaland.com/mlog/2005/12/05/1491/#comment-54233 [...] So who was stupid enough to build the boat? Schoeck cites p. 87 of Eldon Best’s 1924 book The Maori, which is online, but doesn’t seem to say much more about muru than what Schoeck repeats above. A modern interpretation of muru seems to be here. A student paper on the Maori legal system largely citing this link is here, from the same Legal Systems Very Different From Ours class that produced an informative paper on the Aztec legal system I mentioned previously. I highly recommend checking out the site for that class or similar before assuming another culture’s institutions are so bizarre they could not serve a productive purpose. [...] [...] So who was stupid enough to build the boat? Schoeck cites p. 87 of Eldon Best’s 1924 book The Maori, which is online, but doesn’t seem to say much more about muru than what Schoeck repeats above. A modern interpretation of muru seems to be here. A student paper on the Maori legal system largely citing this link is here, from the same Legal Systems Very Different From Ours class that produced an informative paper on the Aztec legal system I mentioned previously. I highly recommend checking out the site for that class or similar before assuming another culture’s institutions are so bizarre they could not serve a productive purpose. [...]

]]> http://gondwanaland.com/mlog/2005/12/28/1491/#comment-38202 Mike Linksvayer » Columbus the slaver Mon, 09 Oct 2006 21:47:12 +0000 http://gondwanaland.com/mlog/2005/12/05/1491/#comment-38202 [...] In elementary school I won a Columbus Day essay contest sponsored by the Roman Cultural Society of Springfield, Illinois for making the audacious claim (so I was told) that Columbus did not discover America. I have ignored Columbus since then, except as a disease vector. I doubt I would have managed to win that contest had I known of another aspect of Columbus, which I only learned about today: By the time Christopher Columbus appeared in Lisbon in 1477 an Old World slave trade was thriving in the eastern Atlantic between West Africa, the Atlantic islands, and Europe. In his famous letter on his first voyage he informed Ferdinand and Isabella he could, with their help, give them “slaves, as many as they shall order.” On his second voyage Columbus loaded five hundred Indian slaves aboard returning caravels. On the last leg of his voyage to Cadiz, “about two hundred of these Indians died,” a passenger recorded, appending, “We cast them into the sea.” In this manner the discoverer of the New World launched the transatlantic slave trade, at first in Indians and from west to east. [...] [...] In elementary school I won a Columbus Day essay contest sponsored by the Roman Cultural Society of Springfield, Illinois for making the audacious claim (so I was told) that Columbus did not discover America. I have ignored Columbus since then, except as a disease vector. I doubt I would have managed to win that contest had I known of another aspect of Columbus, which I only learned about today: By the time Christopher Columbus appeared in Lisbon in 1477 an Old World slave trade was thriving in the eastern Atlantic between West Africa, the Atlantic islands, and Europe. In his famous letter on his first voyage he informed Ferdinand and Isabella he could, with their help, give them “slaves, as many as they shall order.” On his second voyage Columbus loaded five hundred Indian slaves aboard returning caravels. On the last leg of his voyage to Cadiz, “about two hundred of these Indians died,” a passenger recorded, appending, “We cast them into the sea.” In this manner the discoverer of the New World launched the transatlantic slave trade, at first in Indians and from west to east. [...]

]]> http://gondwanaland.com/mlog/2005/12/28/1491/#comment-9703 Mike Linksvayer » New world depopulation Tue, 23 May 2006 21:43:29 +0000 http://gondwanaland.com/mlog/2005/12/05/1491/#comment-9703 [...] There is a tiny hint that hemorrhagic fever could have played a role in the depopulation of the Americas post-1491 but before substantial European contact (my extrapolation and emphasis): The evidence from the Douglas firs shows that during the 16th century central Mexico not only lacked rain but also suffered the most severe and sustained drought in 500 years, one that encompassed nearly the entire continent. [...] [...] There is a tiny hint that hemorrhagic fever could have played a role in the depopulation of the Americas post-1491 but before substantial European contact (my extrapolation and emphasis): The evidence from the Douglas firs shows that during the 16th century central Mexico not only lacked rain but also suffered the most severe and sustained drought in 500 years, one that encompassed nearly the entire continent. [...]

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