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A short set of Guide-lines for members.
No one is exempt from not posting, for if a member can not generate 2 (two) messages per month either in the form of a reply to another persons post or a new message standing on its own merit. It can not be a post just to make your two postings a month, for it has to have some relevance to the group topic of: "Dragons along with other Beasties of Mythology"
If the member has two successive months on no posts of non-topical posts that member will be removed from the group.
The posts and responses must have some relevance to the huge world of Mythology, even so-called living beasts like the Yeti or Abominable Snowman, Loch Ness Monster to name a couple are also fair game within the context of the group as well as any form of Mythology could include.
Even Folklore can be on topic as long as it stays within that realm of sometimes being a very tall tale; this can also include the Fairy-Tales that we learned about when we were young in years.
No 'Personal Attacks" upon any other members of the group. If you want to do something like that send it via private message, for that type of behavior will not be tolerated no matter how well you try to disguise it.
As you will learn soon enough that I have been online in one form or fashion since the mid-1980's and have watched some of the best do some of the nastiness that should never be allowed online. There will only be one warning, for the second time the member is removed from the group as well as banned.
Although I have expanded a little bit on each one of the very few rules of the road so to speak, it never hurts treating other adults as adults.
Other than that have fun with the group.
If the member has two successive months on no posts of non-topical posts that member will be removed from the group.
The posts and responses must have some relevance to the huge world of Mythology, even so-called living beasts like the Yeti or Abominable Snowman, Loch Ness Monster to name a couple are also fair game within the context of the group as well as any form of Mythology could include.
Even Folklore can be on topic as long as it stays within that realm of sometimes being a very tall tale; this can also include the Fairy-Tales that we learned about when we were young in years.
No 'Personal Attacks" upon any other members of the group. If you want to do something like that send it via private message, for that type of behavior will not be tolerated no matter how well you try to disguise it.
As you will learn soon enough that I have been online in one form or fashion since the mid-1980's and have watched some of the best do some of the nastiness that should never be allowed online. There will only be one warning, for the second time the member is removed from the group as well as banned.
Although I have expanded a little bit on each one of the very few rules of the road so to speak, it never hurts treating other adults as adults.
Other than that have fun with the group.
Thanksgiving Myths and Realities of Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving
Myths and Realities of Thanksgiving
In America today, Thanksgiving is generally seen as a time to get together with loved ones, eat a ridiculously large amount of food, watch some football, and of course give thanks for all the blessings in our lives. Many homes will be decorated with horns of plenty, dried corn, and other 'symbols' of Thanksgiving. Schoolchildren across America will 'reenact' Thanksgiving by dressing as either pilgrims or Wampanoag Indians and sharing a meal of some sort. All of this is wonderful for helping create a sense of family, national identity, and of course remembering to say thanks at least once a year. However, as with many other holidays and events in American History, many of these commonly believed traditions about the origins and celebration of this holiday are based more on myth than fact. Let's look at the truth behind our celebration of Thanksgiving.
Origins of Thanksgiving
The first interesting thing to point out is that the feast shared with the Wampanoag Indians and the first mention of Thanksgiving are really not the same event. During the first winter in 1621, 46 of the 102 pilgrims died. Thankfully, the following year resulted in a plentiful harvest. The pilgrims decided to celebrate with a feast that would include 90 natives who helped the pilgrims survive during that first winter. One of the most celebrated of those natives was a Wampanoag who the settlers called Squanto. He taught the pilgrims where to fish and hunt and where to plant New World crops like corn and squash. He also helped negotiate a treaty between the pilgrims and chief Massasoit.
This first feast included many fowl, though it is not certain that it included turkey, along with venison, corn, and pumpkin. This was all prepared by the four women settlers and two teenage girls. This idea of holding a harvest feast was not something new to the pilgrims. Many cultures throughout history had held feasts and banquets honoring their individual deities or simply being thankful for the bounty. Many in England celebrated the British Harvest Home tradition.
The First Thanksgiving
The first actual mention of the word thanksgiving in early colonial history was not associated with the first feast described above. The first time this term was associated with a a feast or celebration was in 1623. That year the pilgrims were living through a terrible drought that continued from May through July. The pilgrims decided to spend an entire day in July fasting and praying for rain. The next day, a light rain occurred. Further, additional settlers and supplies arrived from the Netherlands. At that point, Governor Bradford proclaimed a day of Thanksgiving to offer prayers and thanks to God. However, this was by no means a yearly occurrence.
The next recorded day of Thanksgiving occurred in 1631 when a ship full of supplies that was feared to be lost at sea actually pulled into Boston Harbor. Governor Bradford again ordered a day of Thanksgiving and prayer.
Was the Pilgrim Thanksgiving the First?
While most Americans think of the Pilgrims as celebrating the first Thanksgiving in America, there are some claims that others in the New World should be recognized as first. For example, in Texas there is a marker that says, "Feast of the First Thanksgiving – 1541." Further, other states and territories had their own traditions about their first thanksgiving. The truth is that many times when a group was delivered from drought or hardship, a day of prayer and thanksgiving might be proclaimed.
Beginning of the Yearly Tradition
During the mid-1600s, Thanksgiving as we know it today began to take shape. In Connecticut valley towns, incomplete records show proclamations of Thanksgiving for September 18, 1639, as well as 1644, and after 1649. Instead of just celebrating special harvests or events, these were set aside as an annual holiday. One of the first recorded celebrations commemorating the 1621 feast in Plymouth colony occurred in Connecticut in 1665.
Growing Thanksgiving Traditions
Over the next hundred years, each colony had different traditions and dates for celebrations. Some were not annual though Massachusetts and Connecticut both celebrated Thanksgiving annually on November 20 and Vermont and New Hampshire observed it on December 4. On December 18, 1775, the Continental Congress declared December 18 to be a national day of Thanksgiving for the win at Saratoga. Over the next nine years, they declared six more Thanksgivings with one Thursday set aside each fall as a day of prayer.
George Washington issued the first Thanksgiving Proclamation by a President of the United States on November 26, 1789. Interestingly, some of the future presidents such as Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson would not agree to resolutions for a national day of Thanksgiving because they felt it was not within their constitutional power. Over these years, Thanksgiving was still being celebrated in many states, but often on different dates. Most states, however, celebrated it sometime in November.
Sarah Josepha Hale and Thanksgiving
Sarah Josepha Hale is an important figure in gaining a national holiday for Thanksgiving. Hale wrote the novel Northwood; or Life North and South in 1827 which argued for the virtue of the North against the evil slave owners of the South. One of the chapters in her book discussed the importance of Thanksgiving as a national holiday. She became the editor of the Ladies' Magazine in Boston. This would eventually become the Lady's Book and Magazine, also known as Godey's Lady's Book, the most widely distributed magazine in the country during the 1840s and 50s. Beginning in 1846, Hale began her campaign to make the last Thursday in November a Thanksgiving national holiday. She wrote an editorial for the magazine about this each year and wrote letters to governors in every state and territory. On September 28, 1863 during the Civil War, Hale wrote a letter to President Abraham Lincoln “as Editress(sic) of the 'Lady's Book' to have the day of annual Thanksgiving made a National and fixed Union Festival." Then on October 3, 1863, Lincoln, in a proclamation written by Secretary of State William Seward, proclaimed a nationwide Thanksgiving Day as the last Thursday of November.
The New Deal Thanksgiving
After 1869, each year the president proclaimed the last Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day. However, there was some contention over the actual date. Each year individuals tried to change the date of the holiday for various reasons. Some wanted to combine it with Armistice Day, November 11 commemorating the day when the armistice was signed between the allies and Germany to end World War I. However, the real argument for a date change came about in 1933 during the depths of the Great Depression. The National Dry Retail Goods Association asked President Franklin Roosevelt to move the date of Thanksgiving that year since it would fall on November 30. Since the traditional shopping season for Christmas then as now started with Thanksgiving, this would leave a short shopping season reducing possible sales for the retailers. Roosevelt refused. However, when Thanksgiving would again fall on November 30, 1939, Roosevelt then agreed. Even though Roosevelt's proclamation only set the actual date of Thanksgiving as the 23rd for the District of Columbia, this changed caused a furor. Many people felt that the president was messing with tradition for the sake of the economy. Each state decided for itself with 23 states choosing to celebrate on the New Deal date of November 23 and 23 staying with the traditional date. Texas and Colorado decided to celebrate Thanksgiving twice!
The confusion of the date for Thanksgiving continued through 1940 and 1941. Due to the confusion, Roosevelt announced that the traditional date of the last Thursday in November would return in 1942. However, many individuals wanted to insure that the date would not be changed again. Therefore, a bill was introduced that Roosevelt signed into law on November 26, 1941 establishing the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day. This has been followed by every state in the union since 1956.
Myths and Realities of Thanksgiving
In America today, Thanksgiving is generally seen as a time to get together with loved ones, eat a ridiculously large amount of food, watch some football, and of course give thanks for all the blessings in our lives. Many homes will be decorated with horns of plenty, dried corn, and other 'symbols' of Thanksgiving. Schoolchildren across America will 'reenact' Thanksgiving by dressing as either pilgrims or Wampanoag Indians and sharing a meal of some sort. All of this is wonderful for helping create a sense of family, national identity, and of course remembering to say thanks at least once a year. However, as with many other holidays and events in American History, many of these commonly believed traditions about the origins and celebration of this holiday are based more on myth than fact. Let's look at the truth behind our celebration of Thanksgiving.
Origins of Thanksgiving
The first interesting thing to point out is that the feast shared with the Wampanoag Indians and the first mention of Thanksgiving are really not the same event. During the first winter in 1621, 46 of the 102 pilgrims died. Thankfully, the following year resulted in a plentiful harvest. The pilgrims decided to celebrate with a feast that would include 90 natives who helped the pilgrims survive during that first winter. One of the most celebrated of those natives was a Wampanoag who the settlers called Squanto. He taught the pilgrims where to fish and hunt and where to plant New World crops like corn and squash. He also helped negotiate a treaty between the pilgrims and chief Massasoit.
This first feast included many fowl, though it is not certain that it included turkey, along with venison, corn, and pumpkin. This was all prepared by the four women settlers and two teenage girls. This idea of holding a harvest feast was not something new to the pilgrims. Many cultures throughout history had held feasts and banquets honoring their individual deities or simply being thankful for the bounty. Many in England celebrated the British Harvest Home tradition.
The First Thanksgiving
The first actual mention of the word thanksgiving in early colonial history was not associated with the first feast described above. The first time this term was associated with a a feast or celebration was in 1623. That year the pilgrims were living through a terrible drought that continued from May through July. The pilgrims decided to spend an entire day in July fasting and praying for rain. The next day, a light rain occurred. Further, additional settlers and supplies arrived from the Netherlands. At that point, Governor Bradford proclaimed a day of Thanksgiving to offer prayers and thanks to God. However, this was by no means a yearly occurrence.
The next recorded day of Thanksgiving occurred in 1631 when a ship full of supplies that was feared to be lost at sea actually pulled into Boston Harbor. Governor Bradford again ordered a day of Thanksgiving and prayer.
Was the Pilgrim Thanksgiving the First?
While most Americans think of the Pilgrims as celebrating the first Thanksgiving in America, there are some claims that others in the New World should be recognized as first. For example, in Texas there is a marker that says, "Feast of the First Thanksgiving – 1541." Further, other states and territories had their own traditions about their first thanksgiving. The truth is that many times when a group was delivered from drought or hardship, a day of prayer and thanksgiving might be proclaimed.
Beginning of the Yearly Tradition
During the mid-1600s, Thanksgiving as we know it today began to take shape. In Connecticut valley towns, incomplete records show proclamations of Thanksgiving for September 18, 1639, as well as 1644, and after 1649. Instead of just celebrating special harvests or events, these were set aside as an annual holiday. One of the first recorded celebrations commemorating the 1621 feast in Plymouth colony occurred in Connecticut in 1665.
Growing Thanksgiving Traditions
Over the next hundred years, each colony had different traditions and dates for celebrations. Some were not annual though Massachusetts and Connecticut both celebrated Thanksgiving annually on November 20 and Vermont and New Hampshire observed it on December 4. On December 18, 1775, the Continental Congress declared December 18 to be a national day of Thanksgiving for the win at Saratoga. Over the next nine years, they declared six more Thanksgivings with one Thursday set aside each fall as a day of prayer.
George Washington issued the first Thanksgiving Proclamation by a President of the United States on November 26, 1789. Interestingly, some of the future presidents such as Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson would not agree to resolutions for a national day of Thanksgiving because they felt it was not within their constitutional power. Over these years, Thanksgiving was still being celebrated in many states, but often on different dates. Most states, however, celebrated it sometime in November.
Sarah Josepha Hale and Thanksgiving
Sarah Josepha Hale is an important figure in gaining a national holiday for Thanksgiving. Hale wrote the novel Northwood; or Life North and South in 1827 which argued for the virtue of the North against the evil slave owners of the South. One of the chapters in her book discussed the importance of Thanksgiving as a national holiday. She became the editor of the Ladies' Magazine in Boston. This would eventually become the Lady's Book and Magazine, also known as Godey's Lady's Book, the most widely distributed magazine in the country during the 1840s and 50s. Beginning in 1846, Hale began her campaign to make the last Thursday in November a Thanksgiving national holiday. She wrote an editorial for the magazine about this each year and wrote letters to governors in every state and territory. On September 28, 1863 during the Civil War, Hale wrote a letter to President Abraham Lincoln “as Editress(sic) of the 'Lady's Book' to have the day of annual Thanksgiving made a National and fixed Union Festival." Then on October 3, 1863, Lincoln, in a proclamation written by Secretary of State William Seward, proclaimed a nationwide Thanksgiving Day as the last Thursday of November.
The New Deal Thanksgiving
After 1869, each year the president proclaimed the last Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day. However, there was some contention over the actual date. Each year individuals tried to change the date of the holiday for various reasons. Some wanted to combine it with Armistice Day, November 11 commemorating the day when the armistice was signed between the allies and Germany to end World War I. However, the real argument for a date change came about in 1933 during the depths of the Great Depression. The National Dry Retail Goods Association asked President Franklin Roosevelt to move the date of Thanksgiving that year since it would fall on November 30. Since the traditional shopping season for Christmas then as now started with Thanksgiving, this would leave a short shopping season reducing possible sales for the retailers. Roosevelt refused. However, when Thanksgiving would again fall on November 30, 1939, Roosevelt then agreed. Even though Roosevelt's proclamation only set the actual date of Thanksgiving as the 23rd for the District of Columbia, this changed caused a furor. Many people felt that the president was messing with tradition for the sake of the economy. Each state decided for itself with 23 states choosing to celebrate on the New Deal date of November 23 and 23 staying with the traditional date. Texas and Colorado decided to celebrate Thanksgiving twice!
The confusion of the date for Thanksgiving continued through 1940 and 1941. Due to the confusion, Roosevelt announced that the traditional date of the last Thursday in November would return in 1942. However, many individuals wanted to insure that the date would not be changed again. Therefore, a bill was introduced that Roosevelt signed into law on November 26, 1941 establishing the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day. This has been followed by every state in the union since 1956.
10 Thanksgiving Myths and Misconceptions
10 Thanksgiving Myths and Misconceptions:
***Please note that this happens to be a power point presentation***
10 Thanksgiving Myths and Misconceptions -
***Please note that this happens to be a power point presentation***
10 Thanksgiving Myths and Misconceptions -
The first Thanksgiving
The first Thanksgiving on record dates back to the fall of 1621, when 52 English colonists and 90 Wampanoag came together in Plymouth, Massachusetts for a three-day feast celebrating the bountiful harvest. The Native Americans contributed five deer to the celebration, with the colonists supplying everything else. In addition to celebrating their crop’s abundance, they were entertained with singing, dancing and gaming.
So what did the Pilgrims eat back in the 1600s? No one can be 100 percent sure about the specific menu items, but historians have been able to pinpoint with some accuracy the types of foods that were brought to the table, thanks to a letter written by Edward Winslow of the original colonists. An excerpt of Winslow’s letter speaks about the various crops.
“We set last spring some twenty acres of Indian corn, and sowed some six acres of barley and peas …Our corn did prove well; and, God be praised, we had a good increase of Indian corn, and our barley indifferent good … Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might, after a special manner, rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which time, among other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming among us, and among the rest their greatest king, Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted; and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation….”
For fish and fowl, we have great abundance. Fresh cod in the summer is but coarse meat with us. Our bay is full of lobsters all the summer, and affords a variety of other fish. In September, we can take a hogshead of eels in a night, with small labor, and can dig them out of their beds all the winter. We have mussels and others at our doors. Oysters we have none near, but we can have them brought by the Indians when we will. All the springtime the earth sends forth naturally very good salad herbs. Here are grapes, white and red, and very sweet and strong also; strawberries, gooseberries, raspberries, etc.; plums of three sorts, white, black, and red, being almost as good as a damson…
Based on Winslow’s letter and the findings of other historians, it can be determined that the original Thanksgiving dinner contained:
Wild fowl – duck and geese
Seafood - including lobsters, eel, mussels and oysters
Corn, parsnips and turnips
Collards and spinach
Onions
Berries
Grapes
Nuts
Although turkeys roamed wild in the Massachusetts colony, they Winslow did not specifically mention them and therefore the thinking is that turkey was not part of the original Thanksgiving celebration.
Other items not included in the first feast were:
Potatoes (both white and sweet) – neither variety were yet available in America. The British had to import sweet potatoes from Spain and were used by the extremely wealthy as aphrodisiacs.
Cranberry sauce – Cranberries were used by the Pilgrims and Indians to add zing and tartness to recipes, but sauce (made with expensive sugar) was not produced until 50 years later.
Pumpkin pie– pumpkin and squash were available but were served as vegetables. There were no readily available ingredients to make pie crust.
Apples – apples were not available to the Plymouth settlers.
Popcorn – corn was grown, but not popped.
It wasn’t until 1863 that President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the fourth Thursday of November as Thanksgiving, America’s way of saying “thanks” for their good food and fortune. Today’s Thanksgiving celebration is only one day, although judging from the amount of dishes prepared for America’s feast of food, the leftovers can last for days beyond the holiday. As in the 1600s, the festivities revolve around eating (what else), but the games, dancing and entertainment that were popular in colonial times have been replaced with watching parades and football … before stuffing ourselves with …more food.
So what did the Pilgrims eat back in the 1600s? No one can be 100 percent sure about the specific menu items, but historians have been able to pinpoint with some accuracy the types of foods that were brought to the table, thanks to a letter written by Edward Winslow of the original colonists. An excerpt of Winslow’s letter speaks about the various crops.
“We set last spring some twenty acres of Indian corn, and sowed some six acres of barley and peas …Our corn did prove well; and, God be praised, we had a good increase of Indian corn, and our barley indifferent good … Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might, after a special manner, rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which time, among other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming among us, and among the rest their greatest king, Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted; and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation….”
For fish and fowl, we have great abundance. Fresh cod in the summer is but coarse meat with us. Our bay is full of lobsters all the summer, and affords a variety of other fish. In September, we can take a hogshead of eels in a night, with small labor, and can dig them out of their beds all the winter. We have mussels and others at our doors. Oysters we have none near, but we can have them brought by the Indians when we will. All the springtime the earth sends forth naturally very good salad herbs. Here are grapes, white and red, and very sweet and strong also; strawberries, gooseberries, raspberries, etc.; plums of three sorts, white, black, and red, being almost as good as a damson…
Based on Winslow’s letter and the findings of other historians, it can be determined that the original Thanksgiving dinner contained:
Wild fowl – duck and geese
Seafood - including lobsters, eel, mussels and oysters
Corn, parsnips and turnips
Collards and spinach
Onions
Berries
Grapes
Nuts
Although turkeys roamed wild in the Massachusetts colony, they Winslow did not specifically mention them and therefore the thinking is that turkey was not part of the original Thanksgiving celebration.
Other items not included in the first feast were:
Potatoes (both white and sweet) – neither variety were yet available in America. The British had to import sweet potatoes from Spain and were used by the extremely wealthy as aphrodisiacs.
Cranberry sauce – Cranberries were used by the Pilgrims and Indians to add zing and tartness to recipes, but sauce (made with expensive sugar) was not produced until 50 years later.
Pumpkin pie– pumpkin and squash were available but were served as vegetables. There were no readily available ingredients to make pie crust.
Apples – apples were not available to the Plymouth settlers.
Popcorn – corn was grown, but not popped.
It wasn’t until 1863 that President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the fourth Thursday of November as Thanksgiving, America’s way of saying “thanks” for their good food and fortune. Today’s Thanksgiving celebration is only one day, although judging from the amount of dishes prepared for America’s feast of food, the leftovers can last for days beyond the holiday. As in the 1600s, the festivities revolve around eating (what else), but the games, dancing and entertainment that were popular in colonial times have been replaced with watching parades and football … before stuffing ourselves with …more food.
Thanksgiving History
Thanksgiving History
Myths or Facts About Thanksgiving?
There are a lot of misconceptions out there about the Thanksgiving Holiday. Somehow, the old stories have blended or have been distorted, and the picture that we envision when we think about the first Thanksgiving is not a true picture at all. For every misconception, there is a fact. Maybe this will help replace some of those false pictures with the real ones.
Myth #1—Pocahontas helped the pilgrims.
This is a myth that has been around for a long time. It is actually more of a misunderstanding than a myth. There were two groups of colonists settling in America in the early 1600s. One group was called the Pilgrims. They were religious separatists who had come to the New World to practice their own religion. They arrived in America in 1620. Pocahontas died in 1617; about the time the Pilgrims were deciding to make the voyage to America.
The truth behind the myth is that Pocahontas did help the other group of settlers. They arrived in America in 1607. During the winter of 1609/1610, they suffered from disease and starvation. Some of the local Indians came to help and Pocahontas was among them. She was just a child of about 12 when she first met the settlers and they enjoyed her charm and her energy. Although they enjoyed her and appreciated her, they did take her hostage at one point. She eventually married John Rolfe and traveled to England with him. She died on the return voyage in 1617 at the age of 22.
Myth #2—The pilgrims ate pumpkin pie and mashed potatoes at their Thanksgiving feast.
The traditional Thanksgiving dinner that your Grandma cooks for you is not the traditional Thanksgiving dinner that the pilgrims ate. They did not have potatoes yet and although they had pumpkin, there were no pumpkin pies. Other things that the pilgrims did not have at that time include cranberries and sweet potatoes.
What the pilgrims did eat that we eat at Thanksgiving was turkey. There were plenty of turkeys in the area. One of the Pilgrims kept a journal in which he reported that there were enough birds killed to keep the whole company fed for a week. They also ate a lot of venison; the same journal reported that five deer were killed for meat. The other staple on the menu was cornmeal. They ground the corn from the harvest into a fine meal from which they made puddings and cornbread.
Myth #3—The Pilgrims celebrated Thanksgiving and we have been celebrating it every since.
Actually, the first thanksgiving was not considered a holiday at all. It was a spontaneous party that resulted from a great harvest. The Pilgrims were thankful for the harvest and for the Indians who taught them how to plant and grow corn. The next year at harvest time there was no such party. In fact, the next year’s harvest wasn’t that great so there was not a lot of thankfulness that year.
Several governors of that time tried to institute a Thanksgiving Day but it didn’t really stick. The first President, George Washington, declared a national holiday to celebrate Thanksgiving but that didn’t stick either. It wasn’t until the 1860s, under the presidency of Abraham Lincoln, that Thanksgiving became a recognized holiday that was commonly celebrated. It was even later than that when the day that Thanksgiving was celebrated became the fourth Thursday of November.
It is interesting to look at the real history of Thanksgiving. If you study it, you might find that there are other surprises surrounding the holiday. For example, did you know that in Virginia, some people still celebrate Thanksgiving on 4 December? It’s true; they do.
Myths or Facts About Thanksgiving?
There are a lot of misconceptions out there about the Thanksgiving Holiday. Somehow, the old stories have blended or have been distorted, and the picture that we envision when we think about the first Thanksgiving is not a true picture at all. For every misconception, there is a fact. Maybe this will help replace some of those false pictures with the real ones.
Myth #1—Pocahontas helped the pilgrims.
This is a myth that has been around for a long time. It is actually more of a misunderstanding than a myth. There were two groups of colonists settling in America in the early 1600s. One group was called the Pilgrims. They were religious separatists who had come to the New World to practice their own religion. They arrived in America in 1620. Pocahontas died in 1617; about the time the Pilgrims were deciding to make the voyage to America.
The truth behind the myth is that Pocahontas did help the other group of settlers. They arrived in America in 1607. During the winter of 1609/1610, they suffered from disease and starvation. Some of the local Indians came to help and Pocahontas was among them. She was just a child of about 12 when she first met the settlers and they enjoyed her charm and her energy. Although they enjoyed her and appreciated her, they did take her hostage at one point. She eventually married John Rolfe and traveled to England with him. She died on the return voyage in 1617 at the age of 22.
Myth #2—The pilgrims ate pumpkin pie and mashed potatoes at their Thanksgiving feast.
The traditional Thanksgiving dinner that your Grandma cooks for you is not the traditional Thanksgiving dinner that the pilgrims ate. They did not have potatoes yet and although they had pumpkin, there were no pumpkin pies. Other things that the pilgrims did not have at that time include cranberries and sweet potatoes.
What the pilgrims did eat that we eat at Thanksgiving was turkey. There were plenty of turkeys in the area. One of the Pilgrims kept a journal in which he reported that there were enough birds killed to keep the whole company fed for a week. They also ate a lot of venison; the same journal reported that five deer were killed for meat. The other staple on the menu was cornmeal. They ground the corn from the harvest into a fine meal from which they made puddings and cornbread.
Myth #3—The Pilgrims celebrated Thanksgiving and we have been celebrating it every since.
Actually, the first thanksgiving was not considered a holiday at all. It was a spontaneous party that resulted from a great harvest. The Pilgrims were thankful for the harvest and for the Indians who taught them how to plant and grow corn. The next year at harvest time there was no such party. In fact, the next year’s harvest wasn’t that great so there was not a lot of thankfulness that year.
Several governors of that time tried to institute a Thanksgiving Day but it didn’t really stick. The first President, George Washington, declared a national holiday to celebrate Thanksgiving but that didn’t stick either. It wasn’t until the 1860s, under the presidency of Abraham Lincoln, that Thanksgiving became a recognized holiday that was commonly celebrated. It was even later than that when the day that Thanksgiving was celebrated became the fourth Thursday of November.
It is interesting to look at the real history of Thanksgiving. If you study it, you might find that there are other surprises surrounding the holiday. For example, did you know that in Virginia, some people still celebrate Thanksgiving on 4 December? It’s true; they do.
Mayflower Myths
Mayflower Myths
"The reason that we have so many myths associated with Thanksgiving is that it is an invented tradition. It doesn't originate in any one event. It is based on the New England puritan Thanksgiving, which is a religious Thanksgiving, and the traditional harvest celebrations of England and New England and maybe other ideas like commemorating the pilgrims. All of these have been gathered together and transformed into something different from the original parts."
– James W. Baker
Senior Historian at Plimoth Plantation
Myth: The first Thanksgiving was in 1621 and the pilgrims celebrated it every year thereafter.
Fact: The first feast wasn't repeated, so it wasn't the beginning of a tradition. In fact, the colonists didn't even call the day Thanksgiving. To them, a thanksgiving was a religious holiday in which they would go to church and thank God for a specific event, such as the winning of a battle. On such a religious day, the types of recreational activities that the pilgrims and Wampanoag Indians participated in during the 1621 harvest feast--dancing, singing secular songs, playing games--wouldn't have been allowed. The feast was a secular celebration, so it never would have been considered a thanksgiving in the pilgrims minds.
Myth: The original Thanksgiving feast took place on the fourth Thursday of November.
Fact: The original feast in 1621 occurred sometime between September 21 and November 11. Unlike our modern holiday, it was three days long. The event was based on English harvest festivals, which traditionally occurred around the 29th of September. After that first harvest was completed by the Plymouth colonists, Gov. William Bradford proclaimed a day of thanksgiving and prayer, shared by all the colonists and neighboring Indians. In 1623 a day of fasting and prayer during a period of drought was changed to one of thanksgiving because the rain came during the prayers. Gradually the custom prevailed in New England of annually celebrating thanksgiving after the harvest.
During the American Revolution a yearly day of national thanksgiving was suggested by the Continental Congress. In 1817 New York State adopted Thanksgiving Day as an annual custom, and by the middle of the 19th century many other states had done the same. In 1863 President Abraham Lincoln appointed a day of thanksgiving as the last Thursday in November, which he may have correlated it with the November 21, 1621, anchoring of the Mayflower at Cape Cod. Since then, each president has issued a Thanksgiving Day proclamation. President Franklin D. Roosevelt set the date for Thanksgiving to the fourth Thursday of November in 1939 (approved by Congress in 1941)
Myth: The pilgrims wore only black and white clothing. They had buckles on their hats, garments, and shoes.
Fact: Buckles did not come into fashion until later in the seventeenth century and black and white were commonly worn only on Sunday and formal occasions. Women typically dressed in red, earthy green, brown, blue, violet, and gray, while men wore clothing in white, beige, black, earthy green, and brown.
Myth: The pilgrims brought furniture with them on the Mayflower.
Fact: The only furniture that the pilgrims brought on the Mayflower was chests and boxes. They constructed wooden furniture once they settled in Plymouth.
Myth: The Mayflower was headed for Virginia, but due to a navigational mistake it ended up in Cape Cod Massachusetts.
Fact: The Pilgrims were in fact planning to settle in Virginia, but not the modern-day state of Virginia. They were part of the Virginia Company, which had the rights to most of the eastern seaboard of the U.S. The pilgrims had intended to go to the Hudson River region in New York State, which would have been considered "Northern Virginia," but they landed in Cape Cod instead. Treacherous seas prevented them from venturing further south.
"The reason that we have so many myths associated with Thanksgiving is that it is an invented tradition. It doesn't originate in any one event. It is based on the New England puritan Thanksgiving, which is a religious Thanksgiving, and the traditional harvest celebrations of England and New England and maybe other ideas like commemorating the pilgrims. All of these have been gathered together and transformed into something different from the original parts."
– James W. Baker
Senior Historian at Plimoth Plantation
Myth: The first Thanksgiving was in 1621 and the pilgrims celebrated it every year thereafter.
Fact: The first feast wasn't repeated, so it wasn't the beginning of a tradition. In fact, the colonists didn't even call the day Thanksgiving. To them, a thanksgiving was a religious holiday in which they would go to church and thank God for a specific event, such as the winning of a battle. On such a religious day, the types of recreational activities that the pilgrims and Wampanoag Indians participated in during the 1621 harvest feast--dancing, singing secular songs, playing games--wouldn't have been allowed. The feast was a secular celebration, so it never would have been considered a thanksgiving in the pilgrims minds.
Myth: The original Thanksgiving feast took place on the fourth Thursday of November.
Fact: The original feast in 1621 occurred sometime between September 21 and November 11. Unlike our modern holiday, it was three days long. The event was based on English harvest festivals, which traditionally occurred around the 29th of September. After that first harvest was completed by the Plymouth colonists, Gov. William Bradford proclaimed a day of thanksgiving and prayer, shared by all the colonists and neighboring Indians. In 1623 a day of fasting and prayer during a period of drought was changed to one of thanksgiving because the rain came during the prayers. Gradually the custom prevailed in New England of annually celebrating thanksgiving after the harvest.
During the American Revolution a yearly day of national thanksgiving was suggested by the Continental Congress. In 1817 New York State adopted Thanksgiving Day as an annual custom, and by the middle of the 19th century many other states had done the same. In 1863 President Abraham Lincoln appointed a day of thanksgiving as the last Thursday in November, which he may have correlated it with the November 21, 1621, anchoring of the Mayflower at Cape Cod. Since then, each president has issued a Thanksgiving Day proclamation. President Franklin D. Roosevelt set the date for Thanksgiving to the fourth Thursday of November in 1939 (approved by Congress in 1941)
Myth: The pilgrims wore only black and white clothing. They had buckles on their hats, garments, and shoes.
Fact: Buckles did not come into fashion until later in the seventeenth century and black and white were commonly worn only on Sunday and formal occasions. Women typically dressed in red, earthy green, brown, blue, violet, and gray, while men wore clothing in white, beige, black, earthy green, and brown.
Myth: The pilgrims brought furniture with them on the Mayflower.
Fact: The only furniture that the pilgrims brought on the Mayflower was chests and boxes. They constructed wooden furniture once they settled in Plymouth.
Myth: The Mayflower was headed for Virginia, but due to a navigational mistake it ended up in Cape Cod Massachusetts.
Fact: The Pilgrims were in fact planning to settle in Virginia, but not the modern-day state of Virginia. They were part of the Virginia Company, which had the rights to most of the eastern seaboard of the U.S. The pilgrims had intended to go to the Hudson River region in New York State, which would have been considered "Northern Virginia," but they landed in Cape Cod instead. Treacherous seas prevented them from venturing further south.
Tornadoes: Myths and Misconceptions
Myth or Misconception #5 .... Highway overpasses are a safe place to shelter if you are on the road when you see a tornado coming.
Myths continue to kill! In a film entitled terrible Tuesday, about the Wichita Falls tornado of 1979, a man was interviewed by a reporter about his close brush with death. He had been on the highway when he realized a tornado was coming. He parked his car and ran up underneath the overpass crossing the highway. In the early 1990s, the television crew covering a story was on the way back from the shoot. They saw a tornado, and when they realized it was gaining on them, they parked the car and ran up under the overpass, where several other people had also tried to take shelter. A small tornado was headed straight for them, but tossed around a van before it reached them. The weak tornado passed south of them, but both the experience and the video were very intense. This video was seen on television programs and newscasts by literally millions of people!
Since that video clip aired, many people have come to assume that this is a safe shelter, perhaps because the news crew survived. But this is a modern-day myth. Scientists and meteorologists and the emergency management people have become very frustrated with the increasing number of motorists who are doing this routinely. The truth is, any time you deliberately put yourself above ground level during a tornado, you are putting yourself in harm's way.
During the May 3, 1999 Oklahoma tornadoes, dozens of drivers pulled over on the highway and ran up under highway overpasses. Not only did this put them at risk, but they put many other motorists at risk by blocking the roads in the area of the overpass. An informal survey of storm chasers showed that 9 out of 10 storm chasers felt that overpasses were extremely dangerous places to be during a tornado.
Scientists at the SPC and NSSL knew that it was simply a matter of time until someone was hurt or killed because they chose to climb up underneath an overpass. And on May 4th, that prediction proved to be true. A woman and her child climbed up to shelter beneath the overpass, with several other people, and the intense winds caught her in their grasp. She was carried a half a mile to her death. Her child sustained slight injuries. It is regrettable that this myth could not have been dispelled before someone paid the price with their life. An excellent explanation of why this is unsafe is at the Southern Region NWS site.
Myth or Misconception #4 .... Opening windows to equalize air pressure will save a roof, or even a home, from destruction by a tornado.
The idea that moving one thin pane of glass is going to protect a roof or house from one of the most violent natural forces on the planet has a certain absurdity about it. It is probably born of wishful thinking and faulty logic, stemming from the need to do something .... anything. In reality, opening windows is a dangerous and useless waste of time, and could actually be harmful to the house.
To get to the very center of a mature tornado (where the pressure may be low enough to cause some explosive effects), the windows would have to endure 100-200 mph winds in the walls of the vortex. Those winds would be laden with boards, stones, cars, trees, telephone poles, and the neighbor's roof shingles as well as wind pressure of more than 100 pounds per square foot. This barrage would blow more than enough ventilation holes in the building to allow any pressure difference to be equalized.
Even with the windows closed, most houses and commercial buildings have enough openings to vent the pressure difference in the time that it takes for a tornado to pass. The engineering team at Texas Tech's Institute for Disaster Research (Minor et al., 1977) point out that the pressure drop inside a tornado with 260 mph winds is only about 10%, or just 1.4 pounds per square inch. Most buildings can vent this difference through its normal openings in about three seconds. That is sufficient time even if the tornado is moving forward at a very rapid 60 mph. In the real world, the discussion is pointless. That violent a tornado would totally blow apart a house before the central low pressure ever arrived. Venting of air to relieve pressure would not be an issue.
If the home owner opens the wrong window, air can rush in and exert pressure on the structure from the inside--like blowing air into a balloon. It is unlikely that the resident knows where the construction weak points are. In addition, the wind fields in a passing tornado are very complex and constantly changing. It is not possible to predict the strongest direction of attack. The best advice from every engineer with whom the author has ever discussed this is to leave the windows alone and get into the basement or other shelter as fast as possible. One should not think first of the house roof, but of the impact of one's death on one's family, or of one's self unnecessarily crippled or scarred for life.
I don't recall the exact origin of the "window opening" advice, but do recall that the original advice was to open windows in both the front and the back of the house. Theoretically, this would allow air to move through the house, and reduce any buildup of interior pressure. Somehow, the advice was altered to include only the windows on the north side of the house, (away from the tornado). There is no evidence that any opening of windows ever helped to hold a roof in place. The best advice is still to forget the windows and get to a shelter.
Myth or Misconception #3 .... Tornadoes never strike big cities.
This misconception has a small kernel of possible truth at its heart. Before we get to that possible bit of truth, we first have to make a number of things clear. When one thinks of a "big city", the image of sky scrapers and large office or apartment buildings come to mind. In actuality, if you were to compare the downtown where these buildings occur with the rest of the city, it would comprise a rather small percentage of the city's area.
Let's look at a map:
The area that is considered "the city" and consists of tall buildings is filled in with blue. The boundaries of the city are outlined in green. The entire city is also surrounded by suburbs, which are outlined in purple. If you think of the city as just the area filled in with blue, then "the city" is a very small target. That more "cities" aren't struck by tornadoes is probably more coincidence than anything else. There are very few "big cities" with skyscrapers in Tornado Alley. In fact, there are only a dozen, and one of them, St. Louis, has a long history of tornadoes in its central area.
Map of St Louis, showing the approximate tracks of the tornadoesThe downtown areas of "big cities" have had tornadoes on occasion. This past spring, a tornado passed through Miami, Florida before it moved out to sea, disproving the idea that they can't form in cities.
The St. Louis, Missouri and East St. Louis, Illinois areas have had more than their share of tornado strikes to their downtowns. The first time was on March 8, 1871, when a tornado that did F-3 damage moved from the west bank of the Mississippi River, across the river, to the Brooklyn-Venice area of Illinois. Ferries and steamers were torn apart and their fragments carried as much as 30 miles. Most of the damage was to the six railroad depots that were destroyed. Eight of the nine deaths occurred in the railroad yards.
A tornado struck again on May 27, 1896, killing 255 people in the two states. Touching down on the NW edge of Tower Grove Park, the storm widened into a mile-wide, complex combination of tornado and downburst winds. It struck the Eads Bridge, just as the windstorm had in 1871. Seven people were killed in a building about where the I-55 sign is on the map to the right. A photo of that building, and another photo of the East St. Louis damage can be seen here. About 1000 people were injured as the storm collapsed or swept away portions of houses, factories, saloons, hospitals, mills, railroad yards, and churches. The storm was at its maximum intensity as it crossed the Mississippi into East St. Louis, and it killed 118 people there, 35 of which were in the Vandalia railroad freight yards.
The third time St. Louis was struck was on September 29, 1927. The tornado began at the south edge of Webster Grove and as it passed through the middle of the city, its path widened from 100 to 600 yards. Over 200 city blocks were torn apart, and 72 people were killed. In Illinois, 6 people were killed when a crucible of molten metal was overturned. Debris from the tornado was carried up to 50 miles.
In the past 40 years, the city of St. Louis and the surrounding suburbs of St. Louis County have been hit 22 times, although none of them were in the tiny skyscraper heart of the city. There are three possible reasons for that. First, the central city may produce a "heat island" in which turbulent rising air disrupts the formation of small tornadoes(keep in mind that most tornadoes are small). The second possibility is that the "roughness" created by the skyscrapers causes turbulence that disrupts the formation of small tornadoes. The third, is, of course, the idea that tornadoas are rare, and the central city is very small. So it is a matter of coincidence.
Professor Fujita of the University of Chicago suggested that the "heat island" effect takes hold for small tornadoes when a city reaches a population of about 1,000,000. There seems to be a lack of small tornadoes in the central cities of Chicago, Tokyo, and London. These are the only three cities that have been carefully studied over a long time.
None of this applies to intense tornadoes. They are just too rare to assume that they avoid central cities. There are thousands of small towns all across Tornado Alley that have never been hit by an intense tornado. If you have ever seen video of the Wichita/Andover, Kansas tornado, it should seem ridiculous to you to think that this monster, at the bottom of an 8-mile-high rotating column, would be bothered by the presence of a few 300-foot-tall buildings. Perhaps some time in the next century, a central city will be in the path of a violent tornado, and we will learn what will happen. The probability of a violent tornado in the downtown area of any large city is about once in a thousand years.
It is possible that a tornado could actually intensify even more after it forms outside of town and moves into the central city. One speculation has it that the friction of the buildings will slow down the inflow of air into the funnel. This would deprive the funnel of air. The pressure would drop, causing the funnel to shrink in diameter, and spin even faster. So central city tornadoes that began outside the city could be more damaging than average. As you can see, there is a lot more to this than the simplistic idea that heat and roughness keeps tornadoes away. The rarity of intense tornadoes and the fact that St. Louis has been hit by three of them is an interesting curiosity, but that is another puzzle for another day.
Myth or Misconception #2 .... Some towns are "protected!"
Various Native American tribes perceived tornadoes in different ways. Some saw them as a cleansing agent, sweeping away the ragged and negative things of life. Others saw them as a form of revenge for dishonoring the Great Spirit. Today, only the myths about the protection of towns by rivers and hills linger in modern American culture.
The Osage Indians, native to Kansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri passed on tornado legends to the early settlers. One such legend has it that tornadoes will not strike between two rivers, near the point where the rivers join. In the past 150 years, this idea may have given a false sense of security to some people who thereby failed to take shelter. They may not have lived to help debunk the myth. One by one, the myths that particular towns are protected have fallen by the wayside.
Emporia, Kansas, for instance, had sat "protected" between the Cottonwood and Neosho Rivers, in native Osage territory, for over a century. Emporia was free of damaging tornadoes until June 8, 1974 when a tornado killed six people and destroyed $20,000,000 worth of property on the northwest side of town. Another tornado did $6,000,000 in damage along the west side of Emporia on June 7, 1990. Part of the path of the 1974 tornado was also the site of a deadly twister on September 29, 1881, but the area was farmland then.
The idea that one's town is "protected" is a combination of wishful thinking, short memory, the rarity of tornadoes, and a distorted sense of "here" and "there." Proof of protection has been offered by a very simple statement of fact. The town has never been hit by a tornado, but 10 tornadoes have touched down "outside" of town in the past 30 years. The occurrence information may be fact, but the conclusion that the town must be "protected" does not logically follow.
That logic disregards some very basic ideas. It ignores the likely possibility that rivers, ridges, and valleys have little or no effect on mature tornadoes. Tornadoes have passed seemingly unaffected over mountain ridges 3,000 feet high. Dozens have crossed the Mississippi River, from Minnesota to Louisiana. Both sides of the river, at the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, near St. Louis, have seen devastating tornadoes.
Topography may have some influence, but protection is not one of them. Weak tornadoes may damage hilltops. But well-formed, mature tornadoes may actually stretch themselves into valleys and intensify. During this vortex stretching, the funnel diameter may shrink in diameter and the tornado will spin even more rapidly. This is hardly what one would call protection for buildings in a valley.
The belief that tornadoes don't hit "here," but always seem to hit "north of town" or "south of the river" ignores some very simple mathematics. "Here" may be a small town with an area of one square mile. Just "outside of town" or "there" or "to the north" may be anywhere within visual sighting from the water tower, perhaps 10 miles in all directions. Therefore, if the town has an area of one square mile, then "outside of town" has an area of over 300 square miles. A tornado touchdown is 300 times more likely "outside" of town than in-town. The "protection" of the town does not come from hills, or a mound, or the joining of two rivers. Tornado protection comes from the same source as our protection from falling comets or other heavenly visitors .... that afforded by the laws of probability .... the very low probability of rare events such as tornadoes.
Myth or Misconception #1 .... The southwest corner of a basement is the safest location during passage of a tornado.
The truth is that the part of the home towards the approaching tornado (often, but not always, the southwest) is the least safe part of the basement, not the safest. This is also true of the above-ground portion of the house. In most tornadoes, many more homes will be shifted than will be blown completely free of a foundation. Homes that are attacked from the southwest tend to shift to the northeast. The unsupported part of the house may then collapse into the basement or pull over part of the foundation, or both. Historically, the few deaths in basements have been caused by collapsed basement walls, houses, and chimneys, rather than by debris that was thrown into the basement from the outside.
For nearly a century, the published conventional wisdom was that the southwest corner of a building, both above and below ground, afforded the best protection. This misconception probably originated from someone's reasoning, rather than from actual observations. They probably assumed that deadly debris would be propelled over the southwest corner and land in the northeast corner.
The idea that it was safe to seek shelter on the side of a house facing the oncoming tornado dates back to at least the first book on tornadoes, the 1887 comprehensive text Tornadoes, by John Park Finley. He placed in italic for emphasis the following remark: "Under no circumstances, whether in a building or in a cellar, ever take a position in a northeast room, in a northeast corner, or an east room, or against an east wall." He also recommended removing the furniture from the west-facing room and closing all windows in the house. This is all incorrect, deadly, and time-wasting advice. It is quite possible that someone has died following it. While relatively few people probably read the book when it was available, the advice was quoted in many newspapers. It is possible that in the limited number of damage surveys that Finley conducted personally, he came upon a grisly scene involving the northeast portion of a poorly constructed house that had fallen over, and it strongly influenced his thinking.
These assumptions went essentially unchallenged until 1966, when Professor Joseph Eagleman of the University of Kansas undertook a survey of destroyed produced by after the Topeka tornado of June 8th. Professor Eagleman's objective study showed that the south side and southwest corners, the direction of approach for the Topeka tornado, were the least safe areas, and the north side of homes were the safest .... both on the first floor and in the basement. He repeated the study after the Lubbock, Texas tornado of May 11, 1970, and the results were even more striking. The southwest portion of the houses were unsafe in 75% of the damaged homes .... double the percentage of unsafe areas in the northeast part of homes. As a general rule, people in basements will escape injury despite the extreme devastation above them. Being under a stairwell, heavy table, or work bench will afford even more protection.
Ignorance of this conventional wisdom, combined with common sense, has saved lives in the past. At the Pacolet Mills near Gainesville, Georgia on June 1, 1903, 550 people ran to the northeast corner of the building as the tornado approached from the southwest. That northeast corner was the only part of the building not destroyed. At least fifty people died in other Gainesville fabric mills on that day, and more than 40 more died in homes near the mills.
Myths continue to kill! In a film entitled terrible Tuesday, about the Wichita Falls tornado of 1979, a man was interviewed by a reporter about his close brush with death. He had been on the highway when he realized a tornado was coming. He parked his car and ran up underneath the overpass crossing the highway. In the early 1990s, the television crew covering a story was on the way back from the shoot. They saw a tornado, and when they realized it was gaining on them, they parked the car and ran up under the overpass, where several other people had also tried to take shelter. A small tornado was headed straight for them, but tossed around a van before it reached them. The weak tornado passed south of them, but both the experience and the video were very intense. This video was seen on television programs and newscasts by literally millions of people!
Since that video clip aired, many people have come to assume that this is a safe shelter, perhaps because the news crew survived. But this is a modern-day myth. Scientists and meteorologists and the emergency management people have become very frustrated with the increasing number of motorists who are doing this routinely. The truth is, any time you deliberately put yourself above ground level during a tornado, you are putting yourself in harm's way.
During the May 3, 1999 Oklahoma tornadoes, dozens of drivers pulled over on the highway and ran up under highway overpasses. Not only did this put them at risk, but they put many other motorists at risk by blocking the roads in the area of the overpass. An informal survey of storm chasers showed that 9 out of 10 storm chasers felt that overpasses were extremely dangerous places to be during a tornado.
Scientists at the SPC and NSSL knew that it was simply a matter of time until someone was hurt or killed because they chose to climb up underneath an overpass. And on May 4th, that prediction proved to be true. A woman and her child climbed up to shelter beneath the overpass, with several other people, and the intense winds caught her in their grasp. She was carried a half a mile to her death. Her child sustained slight injuries. It is regrettable that this myth could not have been dispelled before someone paid the price with their life. An excellent explanation of why this is unsafe is at the Southern Region NWS site.
Myth or Misconception #4 .... Opening windows to equalize air pressure will save a roof, or even a home, from destruction by a tornado.
The idea that moving one thin pane of glass is going to protect a roof or house from one of the most violent natural forces on the planet has a certain absurdity about it. It is probably born of wishful thinking and faulty logic, stemming from the need to do something .... anything. In reality, opening windows is a dangerous and useless waste of time, and could actually be harmful to the house.
To get to the very center of a mature tornado (where the pressure may be low enough to cause some explosive effects), the windows would have to endure 100-200 mph winds in the walls of the vortex. Those winds would be laden with boards, stones, cars, trees, telephone poles, and the neighbor's roof shingles as well as wind pressure of more than 100 pounds per square foot. This barrage would blow more than enough ventilation holes in the building to allow any pressure difference to be equalized.
Even with the windows closed, most houses and commercial buildings have enough openings to vent the pressure difference in the time that it takes for a tornado to pass. The engineering team at Texas Tech's Institute for Disaster Research (Minor et al., 1977) point out that the pressure drop inside a tornado with 260 mph winds is only about 10%, or just 1.4 pounds per square inch. Most buildings can vent this difference through its normal openings in about three seconds. That is sufficient time even if the tornado is moving forward at a very rapid 60 mph. In the real world, the discussion is pointless. That violent a tornado would totally blow apart a house before the central low pressure ever arrived. Venting of air to relieve pressure would not be an issue.
If the home owner opens the wrong window, air can rush in and exert pressure on the structure from the inside--like blowing air into a balloon. It is unlikely that the resident knows where the construction weak points are. In addition, the wind fields in a passing tornado are very complex and constantly changing. It is not possible to predict the strongest direction of attack. The best advice from every engineer with whom the author has ever discussed this is to leave the windows alone and get into the basement or other shelter as fast as possible. One should not think first of the house roof, but of the impact of one's death on one's family, or of one's self unnecessarily crippled or scarred for life.
I don't recall the exact origin of the "window opening" advice, but do recall that the original advice was to open windows in both the front and the back of the house. Theoretically, this would allow air to move through the house, and reduce any buildup of interior pressure. Somehow, the advice was altered to include only the windows on the north side of the house, (away from the tornado). There is no evidence that any opening of windows ever helped to hold a roof in place. The best advice is still to forget the windows and get to a shelter.
Myth or Misconception #3 .... Tornadoes never strike big cities.
This misconception has a small kernel of possible truth at its heart. Before we get to that possible bit of truth, we first have to make a number of things clear. When one thinks of a "big city", the image of sky scrapers and large office or apartment buildings come to mind. In actuality, if you were to compare the downtown where these buildings occur with the rest of the city, it would comprise a rather small percentage of the city's area.
Let's look at a map:
The area that is considered "the city" and consists of tall buildings is filled in with blue. The boundaries of the city are outlined in green. The entire city is also surrounded by suburbs, which are outlined in purple. If you think of the city as just the area filled in with blue, then "the city" is a very small target. That more "cities" aren't struck by tornadoes is probably more coincidence than anything else. There are very few "big cities" with skyscrapers in Tornado Alley. In fact, there are only a dozen, and one of them, St. Louis, has a long history of tornadoes in its central area.
Map of St Louis, showing the approximate tracks of the tornadoesThe downtown areas of "big cities" have had tornadoes on occasion. This past spring, a tornado passed through Miami, Florida before it moved out to sea, disproving the idea that they can't form in cities.
The St. Louis, Missouri and East St. Louis, Illinois areas have had more than their share of tornado strikes to their downtowns. The first time was on March 8, 1871, when a tornado that did F-3 damage moved from the west bank of the Mississippi River, across the river, to the Brooklyn-Venice area of Illinois. Ferries and steamers were torn apart and their fragments carried as much as 30 miles. Most of the damage was to the six railroad depots that were destroyed. Eight of the nine deaths occurred in the railroad yards.
A tornado struck again on May 27, 1896, killing 255 people in the two states. Touching down on the NW edge of Tower Grove Park, the storm widened into a mile-wide, complex combination of tornado and downburst winds. It struck the Eads Bridge, just as the windstorm had in 1871. Seven people were killed in a building about where the I-55 sign is on the map to the right. A photo of that building, and another photo of the East St. Louis damage can be seen here. About 1000 people were injured as the storm collapsed or swept away portions of houses, factories, saloons, hospitals, mills, railroad yards, and churches. The storm was at its maximum intensity as it crossed the Mississippi into East St. Louis, and it killed 118 people there, 35 of which were in the Vandalia railroad freight yards.
The third time St. Louis was struck was on September 29, 1927. The tornado began at the south edge of Webster Grove and as it passed through the middle of the city, its path widened from 100 to 600 yards. Over 200 city blocks were torn apart, and 72 people were killed. In Illinois, 6 people were killed when a crucible of molten metal was overturned. Debris from the tornado was carried up to 50 miles.
In the past 40 years, the city of St. Louis and the surrounding suburbs of St. Louis County have been hit 22 times, although none of them were in the tiny skyscraper heart of the city. There are three possible reasons for that. First, the central city may produce a "heat island" in which turbulent rising air disrupts the formation of small tornadoes(keep in mind that most tornadoes are small). The second possibility is that the "roughness" created by the skyscrapers causes turbulence that disrupts the formation of small tornadoes. The third, is, of course, the idea that tornadoas are rare, and the central city is very small. So it is a matter of coincidence.
Professor Fujita of the University of Chicago suggested that the "heat island" effect takes hold for small tornadoes when a city reaches a population of about 1,000,000. There seems to be a lack of small tornadoes in the central cities of Chicago, Tokyo, and London. These are the only three cities that have been carefully studied over a long time.
None of this applies to intense tornadoes. They are just too rare to assume that they avoid central cities. There are thousands of small towns all across Tornado Alley that have never been hit by an intense tornado. If you have ever seen video of the Wichita/Andover, Kansas tornado, it should seem ridiculous to you to think that this monster, at the bottom of an 8-mile-high rotating column, would be bothered by the presence of a few 300-foot-tall buildings. Perhaps some time in the next century, a central city will be in the path of a violent tornado, and we will learn what will happen. The probability of a violent tornado in the downtown area of any large city is about once in a thousand years.
It is possible that a tornado could actually intensify even more after it forms outside of town and moves into the central city. One speculation has it that the friction of the buildings will slow down the inflow of air into the funnel. This would deprive the funnel of air. The pressure would drop, causing the funnel to shrink in diameter, and spin even faster. So central city tornadoes that began outside the city could be more damaging than average. As you can see, there is a lot more to this than the simplistic idea that heat and roughness keeps tornadoes away. The rarity of intense tornadoes and the fact that St. Louis has been hit by three of them is an interesting curiosity, but that is another puzzle for another day.
Myth or Misconception #2 .... Some towns are "protected!"
Various Native American tribes perceived tornadoes in different ways. Some saw them as a cleansing agent, sweeping away the ragged and negative things of life. Others saw them as a form of revenge for dishonoring the Great Spirit. Today, only the myths about the protection of towns by rivers and hills linger in modern American culture.
The Osage Indians, native to Kansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri passed on tornado legends to the early settlers. One such legend has it that tornadoes will not strike between two rivers, near the point where the rivers join. In the past 150 years, this idea may have given a false sense of security to some people who thereby failed to take shelter. They may not have lived to help debunk the myth. One by one, the myths that particular towns are protected have fallen by the wayside.
Emporia, Kansas, for instance, had sat "protected" between the Cottonwood and Neosho Rivers, in native Osage territory, for over a century. Emporia was free of damaging tornadoes until June 8, 1974 when a tornado killed six people and destroyed $20,000,000 worth of property on the northwest side of town. Another tornado did $6,000,000 in damage along the west side of Emporia on June 7, 1990. Part of the path of the 1974 tornado was also the site of a deadly twister on September 29, 1881, but the area was farmland then.
The idea that one's town is "protected" is a combination of wishful thinking, short memory, the rarity of tornadoes, and a distorted sense of "here" and "there." Proof of protection has been offered by a very simple statement of fact. The town has never been hit by a tornado, but 10 tornadoes have touched down "outside" of town in the past 30 years. The occurrence information may be fact, but the conclusion that the town must be "protected" does not logically follow.
That logic disregards some very basic ideas. It ignores the likely possibility that rivers, ridges, and valleys have little or no effect on mature tornadoes. Tornadoes have passed seemingly unaffected over mountain ridges 3,000 feet high. Dozens have crossed the Mississippi River, from Minnesota to Louisiana. Both sides of the river, at the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, near St. Louis, have seen devastating tornadoes.
Topography may have some influence, but protection is not one of them. Weak tornadoes may damage hilltops. But well-formed, mature tornadoes may actually stretch themselves into valleys and intensify. During this vortex stretching, the funnel diameter may shrink in diameter and the tornado will spin even more rapidly. This is hardly what one would call protection for buildings in a valley.
The belief that tornadoes don't hit "here," but always seem to hit "north of town" or "south of the river" ignores some very simple mathematics. "Here" may be a small town with an area of one square mile. Just "outside of town" or "there" or "to the north" may be anywhere within visual sighting from the water tower, perhaps 10 miles in all directions. Therefore, if the town has an area of one square mile, then "outside of town" has an area of over 300 square miles. A tornado touchdown is 300 times more likely "outside" of town than in-town. The "protection" of the town does not come from hills, or a mound, or the joining of two rivers. Tornado protection comes from the same source as our protection from falling comets or other heavenly visitors .... that afforded by the laws of probability .... the very low probability of rare events such as tornadoes.
Myth or Misconception #1 .... The southwest corner of a basement is the safest location during passage of a tornado.
The truth is that the part of the home towards the approaching tornado (often, but not always, the southwest) is the least safe part of the basement, not the safest. This is also true of the above-ground portion of the house. In most tornadoes, many more homes will be shifted than will be blown completely free of a foundation. Homes that are attacked from the southwest tend to shift to the northeast. The unsupported part of the house may then collapse into the basement or pull over part of the foundation, or both. Historically, the few deaths in basements have been caused by collapsed basement walls, houses, and chimneys, rather than by debris that was thrown into the basement from the outside.
For nearly a century, the published conventional wisdom was that the southwest corner of a building, both above and below ground, afforded the best protection. This misconception probably originated from someone's reasoning, rather than from actual observations. They probably assumed that deadly debris would be propelled over the southwest corner and land in the northeast corner.
The idea that it was safe to seek shelter on the side of a house facing the oncoming tornado dates back to at least the first book on tornadoes, the 1887 comprehensive text Tornadoes, by John Park Finley. He placed in italic for emphasis the following remark: "Under no circumstances, whether in a building or in a cellar, ever take a position in a northeast room, in a northeast corner, or an east room, or against an east wall." He also recommended removing the furniture from the west-facing room and closing all windows in the house. This is all incorrect, deadly, and time-wasting advice. It is quite possible that someone has died following it. While relatively few people probably read the book when it was available, the advice was quoted in many newspapers. It is possible that in the limited number of damage surveys that Finley conducted personally, he came upon a grisly scene involving the northeast portion of a poorly constructed house that had fallen over, and it strongly influenced his thinking.
These assumptions went essentially unchallenged until 1966, when Professor Joseph Eagleman of the University of Kansas undertook a survey of destroyed produced by after the Topeka tornado of June 8th. Professor Eagleman's objective study showed that the south side and southwest corners, the direction of approach for the Topeka tornado, were the least safe areas, and the north side of homes were the safest .... both on the first floor and in the basement. He repeated the study after the Lubbock, Texas tornado of May 11, 1970, and the results were even more striking. The southwest portion of the houses were unsafe in 75% of the damaged homes .... double the percentage of unsafe areas in the northeast part of homes. As a general rule, people in basements will escape injury despite the extreme devastation above them. Being under a stairwell, heavy table, or work bench will afford even more protection.
Ignorance of this conventional wisdom, combined with common sense, has saved lives in the past. At the Pacolet Mills near Gainesville, Georgia on June 1, 1903, 550 people ran to the northeast corner of the building as the tornado approached from the southwest. That northeast corner was the only part of the building not destroyed. At least fifty people died in other Gainesville fabric mills on that day, and more than 40 more died in homes near the mills.
Something Off About That Picture
Something Off About That Picture
The Legend:
A young man is dropping off groceries at the house of an eccentric old lady when he notices an old photo that makes the hair on his arms stand on end. The photo's normal enough--a young boy in his Sunday best--but something just seems off. He asks the old lady who it is.
"Oh," she replies, trying to stuff a cat in the dishwasher "isn't that beautiful? You can hardly tell he's dead."
The Truth:
While most folks today are too squeamish to take more than a glance into the casket during a funeral, in the late 19th through early 20th centuries someone dying meant it was time to break out the camera for a family photo. The practice was known as memorial photography.
And, while it all sounds like the set-up for some terrifying practical joke on the photographer, there was actually a somewhat reasonable explanation for the practice. The process used to take pictures back then was expensive enough that it was a once in a lifetime (er, or shortly after a lifetime) thing for most, and required people to sit perfectly still for a couple minutes for it to turn out properly. And if there's one thing dead people are good at it's sitting still.
So, the bodies were dressed and propped up, with their eyes held open. And in case they still weren't giving off that lively "I'm not a corpse harnessed to a chair" vibe, some color was added to the faces in the photo. And just look what they could do with special effects in those days!
Eventually the practice of memorial photography went out of style, maybe because picture-taking became more affordable and didn't have to be reserved for special occasions such as death. Or, possibly everyone just sat up all at once and said, "Wait, what the fuck are we doing?"
The Legend:
A young man is dropping off groceries at the house of an eccentric old lady when he notices an old photo that makes the hair on his arms stand on end. The photo's normal enough--a young boy in his Sunday best--but something just seems off. He asks the old lady who it is.
"Oh," she replies, trying to stuff a cat in the dishwasher "isn't that beautiful? You can hardly tell he's dead."
The Truth:
While most folks today are too squeamish to take more than a glance into the casket during a funeral, in the late 19th through early 20th centuries someone dying meant it was time to break out the camera for a family photo. The practice was known as memorial photography.
And, while it all sounds like the set-up for some terrifying practical joke on the photographer, there was actually a somewhat reasonable explanation for the practice. The process used to take pictures back then was expensive enough that it was a once in a lifetime (er, or shortly after a lifetime) thing for most, and required people to sit perfectly still for a couple minutes for it to turn out properly. And if there's one thing dead people are good at it's sitting still.
So, the bodies were dressed and propped up, with their eyes held open. And in case they still weren't giving off that lively "I'm not a corpse harnessed to a chair" vibe, some color was added to the faces in the photo. And just look what they could do with special effects in those days!
Eventually the practice of memorial photography went out of style, maybe because picture-taking became more affordable and didn't have to be reserved for special occasions such as death. Or, possibly everyone just sat up all at once and said, "Wait, what the fuck are we doing?"
Myths & Psychoanalysis
yths are tales of unknown origin handed down by tradition, sometimes orally and sometimes by written word. The stories are set in a primordial period during which the order of the present world is established. They tell the story of the origin of the world, of human beings and animal species, of death, and of the relationship between man and supernatural beings.
Until the fifth century BCE, the Greek word mythos was a synonym for logos (word). With Pindar and Herodotus, it came to mean words of illusion; rumor; the speech of others; irrational, barbarous, even scandalous speech (Détienne, 1979). For better or worse, Western mythology inherited this opposition between rational thought and mythical thought.
When ethnologists realized that the social organizations of the peoples they studied were significantly related to their mythologies, they helped move the study of myths from the impasse that nineteenth-century authors had become stuck in. Claude Lévi-Strauss saw myths as books without authors, their messages "coming, properly speaking, from nowhere" (1969-1981). Studying native American myths in their own terms, he demonstrated that they are transformations of each other and that their different codes express an underlying logical structure. In fact, myths are not only speculations about social organization but also, and above all, they reflect the structure of the human mind (Lévi-Strauss, 1969-1981). Georges Dumézil (1968-1973) laid bare the underlying principles of social organization in ancient Indo-European mythologies, particularly regarding the functions of sovereignty, war, and fecundity.
Freud related psychoanalytic theory to mythology in the broad sense of the term (myths, tales, sayings, jokes): "It is extremely probable that myths, for instance, are distorted vestiges of the wishful fantasies of whole nations, the secular dreams of youthful humanity," Freud wrote in 1908 (p. 152). In 1909 Karl Abraham developed this idea in Dreams and myths (1913) by showing that myths use the same mechanisms as dreams (figuration, condensation, displacement, and secondary revision), and that they are the realization of desires. They can therefore be interpreted in the same way as dreams (see Otto Rank, 1952, 1975).
While Abraham used the Greek myth of Prometheus for his demonstration, Géza Róheim, a psychoanalyst and field anthropologist, directly studied Australian aborigines. For them, mythical time, the time of the primordial ancestors, is "dream time." These aborigines' notion of "eternal dream beings" enabled him to show "how the typical mechanism of all dream construction operates at the heart of mythology and aboriginal rituals" (Róheim, 1952).
Jean-Paul Valabrega (1967, 1992, 2001) devotes considerable attention to the epistemological question of the relation between myths and the unconscious, between myths and fantasy. For Valabrega, myths, which are neither individual nor collective, tend to metamorphose (as shown by the many different versions available) yet remain eternal and perpetually regenerate, in both respects like the unconscious. Moreover, myths are related to fantasies in that they both represent. Myths are made from the stuff of fantasies, and fantasies are made from the stuff of myths: there is a circular relationship between them in which neither is primary. "Psychoanalysis was practically born entirely out of a myth—Oedipus— . . . that Freud rediscovered by analyzing the dreams and fantasies of his first patients, as well as by analyzing his own dreams and fantasies" (Valabrega, 1994). There is also his use of mythical figures like Narcissus, Eros, and Thanatos.
The loose use of the term myth, encouraged if not created by Roland Barthes's work (1970), is more a matter of ideology. This usage, Valabrega (1994) claims, preserves the "function of myths" and the "structure of symptoms." In this usage, words without an author, productions that borrow the anonymity of myths and a few contemporary elements of content, bear witness to the persistence of a discourse that is both intimate and foreign to the self.
Bibliography
Abraham, Karl. (1913). Dreams and myths: A study in race psychology (William A. White, Trans.). New York: Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease Publishing Co. (Original work published 1909)
Barthes, Roland. (1970). Mythologies. Paris: Seuil.
Détienne, Marcel. (1979). Les mythologues de la cité. Revue française de psychanalyse, 43 (3), 355-374.
Dumézil, Georges. (1968-1973). Mythe et épopée (vols. 1-2). Paris: Gallimard.
Freud, Sigmund. (1908). Creative writers and day-dreaming. SE, 9: 141-153.
Lévi-Strauss, Claude. (1969-1981). Introduction to a science of mythology (vols. 1-4). New York: Harper & Row.
Rank, Otto. (1952). The myth of the birth of the hero: A psychological interpretation of mythology (F. Robbins and Smith Ely Jelliffe, Trans.). New York: R. Brunner. (Original work published 1909) ——. (1975). The Don Juan legend. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1922)
Róheim, Géza. (1952). The gates of the dream. New York: International Universities Press.
Valabrega, Jean-Paul. (1967). Le problème anthropologique du phantasme. In Aulagnier, Piera, et al. Le désir et la perversion (pp. 163-206). Paris: Seuil.
——. (1980) Phantasme, mythe, corps et sens: Une théorie psychanalytique de connaissance. Paris: Payot.
——. (1992). Le motif du jumeau: Identité-altérité. Topique, 50, 181-183.
——. (1994). La formation du psychanalyste. Paris: Payot.
——. (2001). Mythes, conteurs de l'inconscient: Questions d'origine et de fin. Paris: Payot et Rivages.
Further Reading
Hartocollis, Peter, and Graham, I. (Eds.). (1991). The Personal Myth in Psychoanalytic Theory. Madison, CT: International Universities Press.
Kris, Ernst. (1956). The personal myth. Journal of the American Psychoanalysis Association, 4, 653-681.
Millar, David. (2001). A psychoanalytic view of biblical myth. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 82, 965-980.
From Psychoanalysis Encyclopedia
Until the fifth century BCE, the Greek word mythos was a synonym for logos (word). With Pindar and Herodotus, it came to mean words of illusion; rumor; the speech of others; irrational, barbarous, even scandalous speech (Détienne, 1979). For better or worse, Western mythology inherited this opposition between rational thought and mythical thought.
When ethnologists realized that the social organizations of the peoples they studied were significantly related to their mythologies, they helped move the study of myths from the impasse that nineteenth-century authors had become stuck in. Claude Lévi-Strauss saw myths as books without authors, their messages "coming, properly speaking, from nowhere" (1969-1981). Studying native American myths in their own terms, he demonstrated that they are transformations of each other and that their different codes express an underlying logical structure. In fact, myths are not only speculations about social organization but also, and above all, they reflect the structure of the human mind (Lévi-Strauss, 1969-1981). Georges Dumézil (1968-1973) laid bare the underlying principles of social organization in ancient Indo-European mythologies, particularly regarding the functions of sovereignty, war, and fecundity.
Freud related psychoanalytic theory to mythology in the broad sense of the term (myths, tales, sayings, jokes): "It is extremely probable that myths, for instance, are distorted vestiges of the wishful fantasies of whole nations, the secular dreams of youthful humanity," Freud wrote in 1908 (p. 152). In 1909 Karl Abraham developed this idea in Dreams and myths (1913) by showing that myths use the same mechanisms as dreams (figuration, condensation, displacement, and secondary revision), and that they are the realization of desires. They can therefore be interpreted in the same way as dreams (see Otto Rank, 1952, 1975).
While Abraham used the Greek myth of Prometheus for his demonstration, Géza Róheim, a psychoanalyst and field anthropologist, directly studied Australian aborigines. For them, mythical time, the time of the primordial ancestors, is "dream time." These aborigines' notion of "eternal dream beings" enabled him to show "how the typical mechanism of all dream construction operates at the heart of mythology and aboriginal rituals" (Róheim, 1952).
Jean-Paul Valabrega (1967, 1992, 2001) devotes considerable attention to the epistemological question of the relation between myths and the unconscious, between myths and fantasy. For Valabrega, myths, which are neither individual nor collective, tend to metamorphose (as shown by the many different versions available) yet remain eternal and perpetually regenerate, in both respects like the unconscious. Moreover, myths are related to fantasies in that they both represent. Myths are made from the stuff of fantasies, and fantasies are made from the stuff of myths: there is a circular relationship between them in which neither is primary. "Psychoanalysis was practically born entirely out of a myth—Oedipus— . . . that Freud rediscovered by analyzing the dreams and fantasies of his first patients, as well as by analyzing his own dreams and fantasies" (Valabrega, 1994). There is also his use of mythical figures like Narcissus, Eros, and Thanatos.
The loose use of the term myth, encouraged if not created by Roland Barthes's work (1970), is more a matter of ideology. This usage, Valabrega (1994) claims, preserves the "function of myths" and the "structure of symptoms." In this usage, words without an author, productions that borrow the anonymity of myths and a few contemporary elements of content, bear witness to the persistence of a discourse that is both intimate and foreign to the self.
Bibliography
Abraham, Karl. (1913). Dreams and myths: A study in race psychology (William A. White, Trans.). New York: Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease Publishing Co. (Original work published 1909)
Barthes, Roland. (1970). Mythologies. Paris: Seuil.
Détienne, Marcel. (1979). Les mythologues de la cité. Revue française de psychanalyse, 43 (3), 355-374.
Dumézil, Georges. (1968-1973). Mythe et épopée (vols. 1-2). Paris: Gallimard.
Freud, Sigmund. (1908). Creative writers and day-dreaming. SE, 9: 141-153.
Lévi-Strauss, Claude. (1969-1981). Introduction to a science of mythology (vols. 1-4). New York: Harper & Row.
Rank, Otto. (1952). The myth of the birth of the hero: A psychological interpretation of mythology (F. Robbins and Smith Ely Jelliffe, Trans.). New York: R. Brunner. (Original work published 1909) ——. (1975). The Don Juan legend. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1922)
Róheim, Géza. (1952). The gates of the dream. New York: International Universities Press.
Valabrega, Jean-Paul. (1967). Le problème anthropologique du phantasme. In Aulagnier, Piera, et al. Le désir et la perversion (pp. 163-206). Paris: Seuil.
——. (1980) Phantasme, mythe, corps et sens: Une théorie psychanalytique de connaissance. Paris: Payot.
——. (1992). Le motif du jumeau: Identité-altérité. Topique, 50, 181-183.
——. (1994). La formation du psychanalyste. Paris: Payot.
——. (2001). Mythes, conteurs de l'inconscient: Questions d'origine et de fin. Paris: Payot et Rivages.
Further Reading
Hartocollis, Peter, and Graham, I. (Eds.). (1991). The Personal Myth in Psychoanalytic Theory. Madison, CT: International Universities Press.
Kris, Ernst. (1956). The personal myth. Journal of the American Psychoanalysis Association, 4, 653-681.
Millar, David. (2001). A psychoanalytic view of biblical myth. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 82, 965-980.
From Psychoanalysis Encyclopedia
Yokut
Great Flood had occurred upon Earth long, long ago. While Earth was still covered with water, there were no living creatures upon the land. Then out of the sky one day glided an enormous Eagle with a black Crow riding upon its back, searching for a place to light.
Around and around Eagle flew until he discovered a projecting tree stump, or what appeared to be a stump, upon which he landed to rest. There was a home at last upon the flat surface, which was amply large enough for Eagle and Crow to roost upon. From here, they surveyed the greenish gray water as far as they could see. The sky was a gorgeous bright blue with a few white drifting clouds, occasionally swirled by a passing breeze. All seemed serene to Eagle and Crow.
Small fish were visible below the water, sometimes leaping out of the sea playfully. Hunger caused Eagle and Crow to swoop down, catching a meal for themselves from time to time. Soon a game developed between the two birds to see which one would be the winner in the fish-catching contest. Upon their return to the stump, however, they always shared the reward.
Because of Eagle's great size and wingspan, he soared to great heights and surveyed widely, as the two birds often flew in opposite directions exploring for land. But no land did they find. No other flying creatures did they see. But they always returned to their home base on the tree stump. Between them, they wondered "How can we possibly think of a way to make land?"
"We know we cannot dive deep enough to find dirt, and the fish are of no help except to provide food." Day after day these scenes were repeated, exploring in search of land or wondering how to create land, only to return to their stump and catch more fish.
One morning soon thereafter and much to their surprise, a Duck was swimming around and around their stump. Occasionally, it dived deep in the water, rose to the surface chewing small fish, twisting its head from side to side trying to swallow its meal. One time, Duck emerged with more mud than fish in its mouth. Eagle and Crow bird-talked excitedly about this! "Can Duck possibly bring up enough mud for us to build land?" they wondered. How could they let Duck know that mud was what they needed most?
An idea occurred to Eagle, which he bird-talked to Crow, "If we supply fish for Duck, maybe he will bring up more mud than fish." By trial and error, the two birds caught fish for Duck, placing them at the edge of the stump, until Duck learned that the fish were for him in exchange for mud!
When Duck appeared on the surface after a deep dive, Eagle and Crow brushed off the mud from Duck's bill and his body with their wings. Progress was slow but steady. Gradually, Eagle had a pile of mud on his side of the stump and Crow had a similar pile on his side. Each placed fish on his own side for Duck, who now responded by carrying more and more mud to Eagle and Crow. This became a great game of fish-and-mud exchange.
Duck worked very hard, consequently he was always hungry. The birds were surprised at how large each one's mud pile grew every day. In bird talk they said, "Duck is helping us to make a new world. This we will share equally."
Occasionally, Eagle and Crow flew toward the horizon, exploring for any new signs of land. But they returned with nothing new to report; however, they noticed a slight lowering of water around the tree stump.
"Surely, the flood must be coming to an end," Crow and Eagle bird-talked. Each day they watched for a change in the waterline. Each day their piles of mud seemed higher and higher. Faithful Duck kept up his good work as Eagle and Crow caught fish for him and scraped off mud from him for each side of the new world.
Another time, Eagle flew high and far in search of dry land, not returning until late. The sun set and darkness enveloped his world on the stump. Next morning, to Eagle's surprise, he saw how much more mud he had acquired, and he was pleased. But after looking across at Crow's mud pile, Eagle was astounded to see that Crow had given himself twice as much mud while Eagle was away. "Was this Crow's idea of sharing the new world equally?" accused Eagle.
Of course, they quarreled all that day and the next over Crow's unfairness. But the following day, they went back to work making their new land. Eagle decided that he must catch up. He caught two fish for Duck and put them in his usual place. Duck responded by bringing up mud twice to Eagle in exchange for his two fish. All three worked very hard for many, many moons.
Gradually, Eagle's half of the new world became taller and taller than Crow's half, even though Crow seemed to work just as hard as Eagle. Duck was faithful to his task, never tiring in his effort to supply mud. Of course, Duck continued to give Eagle twice as much mud for his two fish. Crow never seemed to notice why Eagle's half became higher and higher than his half.
One morning, as the sun rose brightly, the two birds looked down through the water and saw what appeared to be land!
"So that is where Duck finds the mud," they bird-talked. They were pleased to see that the water was subsiding. How they hoped that soon they would be high and dry on their new world.
But all was not so easy, for that very night lightning flashed across the waters and thunder rolled and rolled from one horizon to the other followed by a heavy, drenching rain. Eagle and Crow sought shelter in holes they dug into the sides of their mud piles. All night long the rain continued to fall, washing away much of the new world into the sea.
As the rain stopped and the sun rose, Eagle and Duck looked out upon the waters and saw an arc of many colors reaching from one edge of the horizon across the sky to the other horizon. This brilliant display held their eyes in wonderment. What did it mean? They marveled at how long the colors lingered in the sky. Eagle flew toward the scene for a closer look, returning when the arc disappeared.
In bird talk, Eagle and Crow decided that the storm of the night before must have been a clearing shower. They began their land-building project again, hoping that Duck would resume his work as mud-carrier. Soon the sun's rays burned strong and hot, packing the mud until it was hard. Duck appeared and the team of three continued to build the two halves of the new world.
Day by day, the waters subsided and new land began to show above the waterline but far, far below the new creation by Eagle and Crow. Eagle's half became taller and taller and hard packed by the hot sun. Crow's share of the new world was still great, but never could become as large as Eagle's half of the new world.
In retelling this creation story, Yokut tribal historians always claim that Eagle's half became the mighty Sierra Nevada Mountains. They also tell how Crow's half became known as the Coast Mountain Range. Yokut historians end their tale by saying that people everywhere honor the brave and strong Eagle, while Crow is accorded a lesser place because of his unfair disposition displayed during the creation of the new world by Eagle and Crow.
Around and around Eagle flew until he discovered a projecting tree stump, or what appeared to be a stump, upon which he landed to rest. There was a home at last upon the flat surface, which was amply large enough for Eagle and Crow to roost upon. From here, they surveyed the greenish gray water as far as they could see. The sky was a gorgeous bright blue with a few white drifting clouds, occasionally swirled by a passing breeze. All seemed serene to Eagle and Crow.
Small fish were visible below the water, sometimes leaping out of the sea playfully. Hunger caused Eagle and Crow to swoop down, catching a meal for themselves from time to time. Soon a game developed between the two birds to see which one would be the winner in the fish-catching contest. Upon their return to the stump, however, they always shared the reward.
Because of Eagle's great size and wingspan, he soared to great heights and surveyed widely, as the two birds often flew in opposite directions exploring for land. But no land did they find. No other flying creatures did they see. But they always returned to their home base on the tree stump. Between them, they wondered "How can we possibly think of a way to make land?"
"We know we cannot dive deep enough to find dirt, and the fish are of no help except to provide food." Day after day these scenes were repeated, exploring in search of land or wondering how to create land, only to return to their stump and catch more fish.
One morning soon thereafter and much to their surprise, a Duck was swimming around and around their stump. Occasionally, it dived deep in the water, rose to the surface chewing small fish, twisting its head from side to side trying to swallow its meal. One time, Duck emerged with more mud than fish in its mouth. Eagle and Crow bird-talked excitedly about this! "Can Duck possibly bring up enough mud for us to build land?" they wondered. How could they let Duck know that mud was what they needed most?
An idea occurred to Eagle, which he bird-talked to Crow, "If we supply fish for Duck, maybe he will bring up more mud than fish." By trial and error, the two birds caught fish for Duck, placing them at the edge of the stump, until Duck learned that the fish were for him in exchange for mud!
When Duck appeared on the surface after a deep dive, Eagle and Crow brushed off the mud from Duck's bill and his body with their wings. Progress was slow but steady. Gradually, Eagle had a pile of mud on his side of the stump and Crow had a similar pile on his side. Each placed fish on his own side for Duck, who now responded by carrying more and more mud to Eagle and Crow. This became a great game of fish-and-mud exchange.
Duck worked very hard, consequently he was always hungry. The birds were surprised at how large each one's mud pile grew every day. In bird talk they said, "Duck is helping us to make a new world. This we will share equally."
Occasionally, Eagle and Crow flew toward the horizon, exploring for any new signs of land. But they returned with nothing new to report; however, they noticed a slight lowering of water around the tree stump.
"Surely, the flood must be coming to an end," Crow and Eagle bird-talked. Each day they watched for a change in the waterline. Each day their piles of mud seemed higher and higher. Faithful Duck kept up his good work as Eagle and Crow caught fish for him and scraped off mud from him for each side of the new world.
Another time, Eagle flew high and far in search of dry land, not returning until late. The sun set and darkness enveloped his world on the stump. Next morning, to Eagle's surprise, he saw how much more mud he had acquired, and he was pleased. But after looking across at Crow's mud pile, Eagle was astounded to see that Crow had given himself twice as much mud while Eagle was away. "Was this Crow's idea of sharing the new world equally?" accused Eagle.
Of course, they quarreled all that day and the next over Crow's unfairness. But the following day, they went back to work making their new land. Eagle decided that he must catch up. He caught two fish for Duck and put them in his usual place. Duck responded by bringing up mud twice to Eagle in exchange for his two fish. All three worked very hard for many, many moons.
Gradually, Eagle's half of the new world became taller and taller than Crow's half, even though Crow seemed to work just as hard as Eagle. Duck was faithful to his task, never tiring in his effort to supply mud. Of course, Duck continued to give Eagle twice as much mud for his two fish. Crow never seemed to notice why Eagle's half became higher and higher than his half.
One morning, as the sun rose brightly, the two birds looked down through the water and saw what appeared to be land!
"So that is where Duck finds the mud," they bird-talked. They were pleased to see that the water was subsiding. How they hoped that soon they would be high and dry on their new world.
But all was not so easy, for that very night lightning flashed across the waters and thunder rolled and rolled from one horizon to the other followed by a heavy, drenching rain. Eagle and Crow sought shelter in holes they dug into the sides of their mud piles. All night long the rain continued to fall, washing away much of the new world into the sea.
As the rain stopped and the sun rose, Eagle and Duck looked out upon the waters and saw an arc of many colors reaching from one edge of the horizon across the sky to the other horizon. This brilliant display held their eyes in wonderment. What did it mean? They marveled at how long the colors lingered in the sky. Eagle flew toward the scene for a closer look, returning when the arc disappeared.
In bird talk, Eagle and Crow decided that the storm of the night before must have been a clearing shower. They began their land-building project again, hoping that Duck would resume his work as mud-carrier. Soon the sun's rays burned strong and hot, packing the mud until it was hard. Duck appeared and the team of three continued to build the two halves of the new world.
Day by day, the waters subsided and new land began to show above the waterline but far, far below the new creation by Eagle and Crow. Eagle's half became taller and taller and hard packed by the hot sun. Crow's share of the new world was still great, but never could become as large as Eagle's half of the new world.
In retelling this creation story, Yokut tribal historians always claim that Eagle's half became the mighty Sierra Nevada Mountains. They also tell how Crow's half became known as the Coast Mountain Range. Yokut historians end their tale by saying that people everywhere honor the brave and strong Eagle, while Crow is accorded a lesser place because of his unfair disposition displayed during the creation of the new world by Eagle and Crow.
