We continue our hole in the wall gang style hiding out here in Merida.
Been travelling about and lazing about. Latest trip was just today to Celestun on the Gulf Coast. It's the place with all the pink flamingoes and while the whole flamingoes thing is kitchy-cheesy and lawn ornament stuff for us it's really kinda freaky to be in a boat in the midst of a couple of thousand of the ones that actually move. BTW, they're quite a bit bigger than the Walmart variety.
Lotsa other sea birds too.
We also went through some mangrove areas with the occasional crocodile and other such flora and fauna. Didn't stick my fingers out of the boat so I still have all of them. Need them all with me to play pool when I return, you know. Got back hoping to get this entry out yesterday evening
but it must have been all of that fresh air in the boat and on the beach because we were sporting long eyelids not too long after the dinner hour and decided the better path was to bed down and live to fight another day. And now is that other day is here.
but it must have been all of that fresh air in the boat and on the beach because we were sporting long eyelids not too long after the dinner hour and decided the better path was to bed down and live to fight another day. And now is that other day is here.
Those pics from Sarajevo in your last entry got to me immediately. I was over there for three weeks about the same time Zack was there I believe, but well before I got into the whole Wormhole Electric thing. Two of the weeks were in Sarajevo proper. In fact an early draft of the story that evolved into The Three Miracles of Djerzelez that I had a chance to read included details that actually made me feel I was back there. Got to see a lot of this historic city including many of those streets you probably travelled that got narrower and narrower and sometimes ended abruptly on the edge of one of these hills and mountains that ring the city and made the siege so much like shooting fish in a barrel.
I was at those ski jumps in early April and saw first hand the shell craters and crumbling that the almost four year siege visited upon them. Walking through many parts of Sarajevo proper invariably included seeing and sometimes even stepping around shell craters and rocket attack evidence . The apartment complex I stayed at with my friends has walls that were pocked marked with it. A bird nesting inside one became known to us as " Shelly" in fact.
I remember how sad and depressed I felt when I realized that the religious and political differences that fuelled this whole saddening display go back almost two millennia and you could just tell that they weren’t going to be fading away anytime soon. Alas.
Alas also the next item on todays agenda has a distinct element of bloodshed to it as well. I brought lotsa reading with me. All of it, almost, was on my trusty old I-pad. The one paper and ink item came from one of my 8-ball team cohorts. She entrusted me with her copy of S.C. Gwynne's “ Empire of the Summer Moon “ and told me I’d “really” like it.
I've not has such a time with a book for quite awhile. The cover blurbs are effusive “ transcendant “ “ will leave dust and blood on your jeans “ and “ nothing short of a revelation” . Puffery ?? Except that this is from The New York Times Book Review. The Christian Science Monitor, Chicago Tribune and Cleveland Plain Dealer reviews echo these . I have to agree completely. I really couldn’t put it down at times.
The Commanches nearly succeeded in bringing the flow of “ pilgrims, land-grabbers, sod-busters, Forty-niners and a nation with galloping expansionist urges “ to a standstill. Prior to that they had halted the northern drive of colonial Spain from Mexico and the French expansion westward from Louisana. Settlers arriving in Texas from the eastern United States found their frontier initially being rolled back by Commanches responding to the invasion of their tribal lands and wholesale slaughter of their buffalo herds. Initially the Commanches were simply beyond the ken and understanding of those invading civilizations in their methods and sheer savagery.
As the map reveals, they were almost in your backyard, Carolyn.
I don’t think I've ever read a book with as much violent and graphic subject matter as this. It was not the way of the Commanches to spare lives in their attacks on settlers and on other tribes. Any victims captured were either killed or taken back to be tortured and killed at their camps later. The most valuable proceeds of any raid were horses. Although sometimes women and girls were taken as hostages for bartering purposes at a later date.
Gwynne doesn't dwell on this for shock value so much as to be true to history. He passes on quite matter-of-factly the discovery by family members and settlers who escaped one attack, of victims who had been dismembered and had their fingers cut off and stuffed into their mouths as well as others whose bloated torsos were full of arrows to the extent that they resembled grotesque porcupines.
Yet I found myself moving on through it steadily to see what would happen next. That’s a bit unsettling on its face but if you really think about it its, as has been always said the way of the west, or of any clash between oppressors and those seeking to oppress. Gwynne points out that this kind of frenzied warfare goes hand in hand with a nomadic lifestyle. The Celts of fifth century northern Europe were similar in their fierceness, effectiveness and absolute domination of those who they went up against. Only, it appears, when peoples become rooted on the land and agrarian in their ways, does a moderating and civilizing influence blossom.
The Commanches superior horsemanship was as much to credit for their superiority as anything else.
Almost from birth Commanche braves were being taught to tame, ride and almost become symbiotic with their ponies. Uncounted centuries of hunting buffalo on horseback certainly helped as well.
They were only finally overcome by a group who, essentially, mimicked their methods and fierceness - The Texas Rangers.
"The Rangers were a rough bunch. " Gwynne notes. " They drank hard and liked killing and fist fighting and knife-fighting and executing people they deemed criminals or enemies." As he was further unfolding his description of the Rangers I started to get a tweak. A bit further on he talks about many being " large, physically imposing men " and had names like "Bigfoot "Wallace, " Alligator " Davis and " Old Paint " Caldwell, all reflecting a characteristic or accomplishment of the bearer. The tweak was getting stronger.
When he got to the man considered to be the most feared of all Rangers, John Coffee Hays, I was starting to feel that I'd been here before.
" He was the uber -Ranger, the one everyone wanted to be like, the one who was braver, smarter and cooler under fire than any of the rest of them." Later Gwynne also observes, " Hays had other attributes as well; he was extremely cautious where his men's safety was concerned, and almost motherly in his care of them when they were wounded." - I think I know this guy, Don is thinking to himself by now.
He was known as Jack Hays and to the Commanches who came to fear him the most he was only known as " Capitan Yack" . Okay, I said to myself, is this a coincidence or is this real life inspiration for the Captain Jackson I've encountered on a number of occasions? You'll have to ask the author for me next time you are in touch.
Well, I had hoped to get to the two Halberstam tomes I've been referring to on and off over the last little bit but I think I will pull up the reins here for this time around. That is to be for another time. One item I did find out in my adventures in Halberstam-ville shall be sadly noted here to finish out the violence that seems to be awash in this installment.
Ironically, David Halberstam whose 800 page examination of the mortal shakeup in the north-American auto industry I am just finishing off was killed in 2007 in a car crash. Alas
Alas, too. There shall be no riddle this time. Lets just say its siesta time for riddles for a bit.
That's it for now.
Don
Empire book cover - npr.org
Commanche horsemen - bonanzaboomers.com
Texas Rangers. - en.wikipedia.org
Jack Hays - Houston.culturemap.com
Almost from birth Commanche braves were being taught to tame, ride and almost become symbiotic with their ponies. Uncounted centuries of hunting buffalo on horseback certainly helped as well.
They were only finally overcome by a group who, essentially, mimicked their methods and fierceness - The Texas Rangers.
"The Rangers were a rough bunch. " Gwynne notes. " They drank hard and liked killing and fist fighting and knife-fighting and executing people they deemed criminals or enemies." As he was further unfolding his description of the Rangers I started to get a tweak. A bit further on he talks about many being " large, physically imposing men " and had names like "Bigfoot "Wallace, " Alligator " Davis and " Old Paint " Caldwell, all reflecting a characteristic or accomplishment of the bearer. The tweak was getting stronger.
When he got to the man considered to be the most feared of all Rangers, John Coffee Hays, I was starting to feel that I'd been here before.
" He was the uber -Ranger, the one everyone wanted to be like, the one who was braver, smarter and cooler under fire than any of the rest of them." Later Gwynne also observes, " Hays had other attributes as well; he was extremely cautious where his men's safety was concerned, and almost motherly in his care of them when they were wounded." - I think I know this guy, Don is thinking to himself by now.
He was known as Jack Hays and to the Commanches who came to fear him the most he was only known as " Capitan Yack" . Okay, I said to myself, is this a coincidence or is this real life inspiration for the Captain Jackson I've encountered on a number of occasions? You'll have to ask the author for me next time you are in touch.
Ironically, David Halberstam whose 800 page examination of the mortal shakeup in the north-American auto industry I am just finishing off was killed in 2007 in a car crash. Alas
Alas, too. There shall be no riddle this time. Lets just say its siesta time for riddles for a bit.
That's it for now.
Don
Empire book cover - npr.org
Commanche horsemen - bonanzaboomers.com
Texas Rangers. - en.wikipedia.org
Jack Hays - Houston.culturemap.com
No comments:
Post a Comment