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Vulpine Outlaw Profile picture
Vulpine Outlaw
@Rad_Sherwoodism
Omnivorous reader/poster: general history, Native America, philosophy, Western culture, witchcraft, niche churchy things. Classical Protestant.
Mar 15 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
1. Spoilers for everything up to ToM.
2. When I finish the books, I will have some nice things to say about Sanderson's continuation. But not here. Image In RJ's WoT, there are several initiation rituals. They are all tests, not so much of skill as of character. They all also change the initiate.

The Accepted were presented with images of other lives they longed for and people they loved, and must reject them for their mission. Image
Jul 30, 2024 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Is serial killer fiction a peculiarly liberal preoccupation?

A liberal society attempts to remain neutral on questions of ultimate value, of the ends to which we dedicate our lives. It refuses to judge. Image Our values, then, are private choices. "Choices," as if they are optional and we simply make a decision.

We might also say "judgments," as if they could still be reasoned about, but not definitively, or they would have a claim on other people.

Maybe "preferences." Image
Apr 28, 2024 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
I am studying so I can understand this Image Madness
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Apr 17, 2024 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
This was when he finally escaped the torture of the elite school system and was sent to live with a tutor William T. Kirkpatrick.

On meeting him, the man made Lewis justify the statement that it was a nice day. Lewis considered this heaven. A Greek study session involved, if I remember correctly, first having Kirkpatrick read a chunk in Greek, pausing to make minor grammar notes, and then allowing Lewis to translate as much as he could, consulting his books.
Oct 22, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
I've seen people throwing around the "ackshually, the Jooz are Khazars" thing. Sometimes they limit this specifically to the Ashkenazi, rather than Jews in general.

A few genetics links pushing back: This is what the genetic "family tree" of Jewish groups look like. They all descend from Ancient Near Eastern populations, including the Ashkenazis.

Apr 1, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
What is the connection between controversial academic LEO STRAUSS and eccentrice Ozark farmer BUCK NELSON?

Read quickly, before Twitter bans me for disclosing THE TRUTH I have, through certain secret connections, come into possession of a draft copy of the work Leo Strauss was laboring to finish when he died.

Close friends say he considered it his "magnum opus," that it would "shake the foundations of the modern world," and "save the republic."
Apr 1, 2023 • 12 tweets • 5 min read
Gm. It's trauma day for all us Very Trusting People on the bird site.
Mar 26, 2023 • 9 tweets • 6 min read
The Mississippian Cosmos

The Mississippians had many familiar things in their cosmos: a firmament above, a world tree or axis mundi, an underworld. But some aspects were also very distinctive. The Underworld was considered an underwater realm, associated with the night sky, and associated with the piasa. The piasa had several variants, one of which was the underwater panther.

(I have a completely unfounded theory that this partly refers to giant otters.)
Mar 23, 2023 • 12 tweets • 6 min read
A Paper on Clan Origins

A "clan" in anthropology is traditionally a group of people which share a totem, may not marry one another, and are considered descended from a common ancestor--usually the totem animal. In 1971, Elizabeth Tooker wrote a paper asking why the clan system arose in eastern North America.

Some writers take it for granted that such things have existed for countless ages, but she does not.
Mar 22, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
This is why I get very annoyed at flat statements of "so-and-so is smart." No he's not! He's dumber than a sack of hammers! He just memorizes obscure facts! Alternatively, there are people with brilliant minds for calculating and problem solving, but absolutely no curiosity. They never learn anything new--and wouldn't notice if they did--but they're great at what they do.
Mar 7, 2023 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
Many people are aware of the ancient city of Cahokia, its massive earthen pyramids, and many smaller mounds. Image Fewer know that a vast circle of tall cedar posts--a woodhenge--also once stood in Cahokia, just west of the largest pyramid.

It was aligned with the cycles of the sun, like a massive calendar measuring solstice and equinox. ImageImage
Feb 4, 2023 • 15 tweets • 7 min read
The Meaning of "History" and "Caddoan"

Confucius say: Since civilization literally depends on it, let's make sure to define our terms.

Many people use the word "history" to refer to any kind of study of the past. While not entirely wrong, can also be said to have a more narrow focus.
Dec 22, 2022 • 11 tweets • 6 min read
The Coming of the Bow

Few things are so closely associated with the pop culture image of "the Indian" as the bow and arrow.

Yet the bow is a relative latecomer to North America. In an older article, John Blitz details its origin and spread while making a larger point about how technology disperses across wide areas.
Nov 28, 2022 • 10 tweets • 6 min read
The Dark Tent Ritual

It is night in the taiga of the frozen north. The shaman has been bound and left alone inside a tent. You gather around it in the darkness. Sounds emerge.

Animal sounds.

They want to talk. ImageImage A paper last year examined this "dark tent ritual," which is found from western Siberia all the way to the American plains.

It combines new genetic studies with old methods to give a history to what some consider timeless--a shamanic ritual. ImageImageImageImage