Subject: Re: baidarka frames painted red
From: George Parsons (GHParsons@msn.com)
Date: Sun Feb 18 2001 - 09:22:54 EST
Cinnabar is an oxide of mercury. It should be effective against various
fungi. I wonder if it was done as a decoration and kept because it preserved
the wood?
George
----- Original Message -----
From: Peter A. Chopelas
Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2001 6:54 PM
To: 'baidarka@lists.intelenet.net'
Subject: baidarka frames painted red
I recently was reading an old back issue of Discover magazine (Feb 2000,
p.20) and a brief article reminded me of an earlier thread on this forum.
It seems a linguist at Texas Christian University named Mike Xu has been
analyzing the inscriptions on jade, stone and pottery relics from the Olmec
people who inhabited the American Southwest and Central America some 3,000
years ago.
He found many of their words, inscriptions, art, and religious practices
were similar and sometimes identical to the Shang dynasty of China which
dates 1600 to 1100 BC. The Olmecs appeared suddenly in the Americas from
1200 to 1100 BC. He thinks the similarities are just too striking to be a
coincidence.
But the item in the article that struck me was that both cultures used
cinnabar, a red pigment, to decorated ceremonial objects. There has been
much speculation as why native kayak builders always painted their frames
red and this may explain it. Or this could be coincidence, but there may
be some cultural influence since native Alaskans are genetically Asian and
they may have similar cultural roots.
David Zimmarly had asked the tribal elder Dick Bunion, during the building
of the Hooper bay kayak project, why he painted the frame red. He said "I
do not know, we have always done it that way".
Is it possible the Olmecs migrated to the Americas from Asia in skin boats
across the Bearing sea and down the west coast to central America? Perhaps
leaving religious and other cultural influences along the way? It would be
interesting if some anthropologist would investigate it. It seems that
ancient peoples have been able to travel long diastases and occupy lands
much further than previous generations of anthropologists had assumed. I
guess it was just modern arrogance that assumed it was only relatively
recent Europeans that could build wood ships and cross oceans.
Peter
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