Emerick

Ajax(Alex Jones) was the son of Telamon, king of Salamis, and next to Achillis in warlike strength. He lead the men of Salamis to Troy in TWELVE ships, and was called the bulwark of the Greeks. At the death of Achilles, Ajax, as the bravest of the Greeks, claimed his armor, but it was given to his rival, Ulysses. Upon this, becoming insane he killed himself. Sophocles tells the story of his madness and death in his tragedy, Ajax.

Ajax(ax,ox lead the bulls) cleanser (or Ajax brand cleanser with bleach) is a powdered household and industrial cleaner introduced by Colgate-Palmolive in 1947. Its slogan was "Stronger than dirt!", a reference to the mythical character Ajax. The slogan would be used again for its Ajax Laundry Detergent, when introduced in the early-1960s, with an armed knight riding a white horse. In addition, a widely mocked commercial in the late-1970s/early-1980s declared, "Armed...with Ajax!" In the UK character actress Ann Lancaster appeared on the "It cleans like a white tornado" television advertisements.

Sal~salt~dna
Sal- salt; a word used in chemistry
Salt- a sailor(colloquial)

Bulwark - an outwork for defense.
sides of a ship above the upper deck.

The root of Bull is the Anglo-Saxon bellan, to bellow(below). To bellow is to make a loud outcry; a roar.


Wark, a Scots noun for a building, from the noun wark [wark, wA:rk] (work). The verb form is wirk [wIrk, wVrk]. The past tense is wrocht [wroxt].

WARK (1490 AM) is a radio station located in Hagerstown, Maryland, in the United States. It features a news/talk format with popular personalities like Dennis Miller and Bill O'Reilly. WARK is owned by Nassau Broadcasting.

I'm only beginning to learn about others. I'm only beginning to perceive, to sense.

SO REMOTE IT BE.....PHI-GIRL-HIP

The Trojan "Gurl" Hierarchy of the Canadian "Gyrl" Government


1 - Trojan Ecclesiastic Freemasony's Knights (with PAGE and/or SQUIRE)

2 - The Financial Industry's Mother Fakirs (CCRA: the leaky IRS toll-gaters)

3 - The Mercury/Venus "Free Press" ( the Master harm/assist Incu-baters)

4 - Trojan WEE-MEN Nurse insiders (either a Valkyrie nun or wife)

5 - Deputy Minister's "culling" secretary - and/or - clerk/receptionists

6 - Cosmetic Politician's executive assistants (Hermaphrodites and other Bisexuals)

7 - The Illuminati's REGO LODGE coprolite


Bing, Being, Boeing, Beijing, Bang

TELEPHONE: 1 ... 613 ... 258 ... 2893


Glen Kealey, National President
Canadian Institute for Political Integrity (CIPI)

In God's House

MASS EXTERMINATION PLANNED FOR NORTH AMERICA

If you want a fighting chance to survive the planned cleansing which is being promulgated by ECCLESIASTIC FREEMASONRY's transubstantiated Bobble-heads, the best place to be Without Crossing U.S/Canadian border is in OG.DENS.BURG, NEW YORK.

Fronting the shores of the mighty St. Lawrence River along the U.S.-Canadian border is the Robert C. McEwen Customs House, the oldest federally-owned building in the United States. History buffs will enjoy the walking tour of noted War of 1812 sites or scuba diving among wrecks from military encounters during the 18th and early 19th centuries.

The City of Ogdensburg, New York is located in northern St. Lawrence County along the southern shore of the St. Lawrence River, directly across from the Canadian towns of Prescott and Brockville, Ontario. The City encompasses an area of approximately 8.18 square miles and has a diverse population of 12,364 according to the 2000 Census. The Ogdensburg-Prescott International Bridge conveniently connects the two countries.

The earliest settlement in Ogdensburg dates back to 1749 when the celebrated Sulspician Missionary Father Picquet founded his mission on the banks of the St. Lawrence at the mouth of the Oswegatchie River. He built Fort LaPresentation upon the site of an old Indian village named Swa-gatch. The area was the northern terminus of an original Indian trail that ran from the Mohawk Valley to the St. Lawrence. The City developed into an important port of entry and railroad center during the 19th and early 20th centuries, with extensive trade in lumber and grains.

Throughout Ogdensburg's history the principle branches of industry in St. Lawrence County have relied on the nearby rivers and the bountiful resources common to the North Country. They have included all aspects of lumbering and paper production, boat building, merchant and custom milling, foundry and machine work.

Capitalizing on its location at the confluence of the St. Lawrence and Oswegatchie Rivers, the City has been a seaport since the early l9th century. The completion of the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1959 connected the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean and opened the area to unprecedented industrial expansion.

If you are interested in a more comprehensive photographic history of Ogdensburg and St. Lawrence County,: Ted Como's "Ogdensburg, New York - A photo history".

The Tain Behind the Looking Glass

Latin American Studies

Who were the first Haitians? Where did they come from? What kind of civilization existed at the time Columbus anchored his boat on the north coast of Haiti, near Cap-Haïtien on December 5,1492. How much do we know and how much is left of that civilization are some of our discussion points during this first session of a long look at Haitian History.

The island of Haiti, which is now shared by two independent republics, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, witnessed a flourishing civilization before 1492. Columbus called the Tainos who inhabited the island Indians because he thought he had reached India. Around fifty years after his coming on the island virtually all Taino population was so much decimated that their trait is not encountered in Haiti today. Through archeological evidence, biological and cultural remains, some answers have been provided to the origins of the Tainos, their culture and religion.

Some researchers base their evidence on the Tainos traits that were similar to those of the Indians of South America to conclude that the Tainos may have come from the northern part of that region. Archeologists, through excavation of Tainos remains, conclude that the migration must have happened some time ago in Pre-History

The Tainos lived throughout most of the Caribbean. The immediate neighbors of the Tainos were the Guanahatabeys who lived at the far northern end of Cuba and the Island Caribs on the Lesser Antilles. The Guanahatabeys separated the Tainos from the fully civilized people of the Middle America, (Irving Rouse 1992). The Tainos occupied most of the Greater Antilles. They lived particularly on the island of Haiti and also in Puerto Rico. They called that island Haiti,
Quisqueya or Bohio because of its physical features. Haiti in Taino means high ground, mountainous land. Columbus renamed the island Hispaniola.

The Tainos exchanged cultural, linguistic and biological traits with the Guanahatabeys and the Island-Caribs. Some ethnohistorians call the Tainos, Arawacks because they are said to be the descendents of Arawacks from the North Eastern part of South America. However, they preferred to be called Tainos, which means men of the good. Most agree that the Tainos who lived in Haiti or Bohio and the Boriquenos of Puerto Rico had a more advanced civilization.

According to various estimates, when the Spaniards conquered the island of Haiti, as many as 100,000 to 1,000,000 Tainos were living on that land. That number would be reduced to zero due to genocide committed by the Spaniards. Nowadays, except for archeological remains and some artwork, there is practically no clear trace of Taino descent in Haiti.

Society and Culture

The inhabitants of Haiti and Puerto Rico were considered to be the most populous and most advanced culturally among the other inhabitants of the Caribbean islands. The Tainos were said to be gentle and peaceful, happy and friendly. It is believed that the Tainos traveled throughout the other islands eventually replenishing less developed communities. Most scholars agree that they traveled up and down the chain of islands. They traveled in groups with children, women and domestic animals. They had well built canoes of as much as 25 meters able to carry as many as fifty people. The Taino society was communal in nature. It was a well-organized society divided between different "caciquats" or kingdom each governed by a chief or cacique. The cacique played the role of priest, healer and/or local legislator.

This position of cacique was not limited to men only; women could fill that position as well. The cacique was paid a tribute to oversee the village. This was a hierarchical society where other levels of honor existed. There existed thus a number of sub-caciques on the island. The sub-caciques did not get paid for their position, but were responsible for various services to the village and to the cacique. At the time of the first contact with the Spaniards, the island of Haiti was divided into five caciquats or provinces.

Tainos hated hard labor and ardous climbs. For those reasons, they, for the most part stayed away from the mountainous regions of the island. You will find that the caciquats coincided with the coastal plains or interior valleys.

The Marien with Guacanagaric as cacique was situated in the north and north East Coast interior stradling the northern regions of nowadays Haiti and Dominican Republic. The Maguana with Caonabo as cacique, occupied the central plains of the Cibao. The Magua with Guarionex as cacique, was in the farther North East. The Xaragua with Bohechio as cacique, occupied the western plains of nowadays Haiti. The Higuey with Cotubanama or Cayacoa, Occupied the Easternmost peninsula Rico

The villages contained an average of one to two thousand people living in irregular houses arranged around a plaza. The typical village of the Taino contained a flat court in the center of the villagewith houses surrounding it. The regular houses had a circular shaped figure with poles providing its primary support.They had dirt floor and roofed dwelling and were covered with woven straw and palm leaves. These houses were called ajoupas. They received guests on wooden stools.

Tainos had strong familial ties and related families lived together. Tainos society was a polygamous one with the cacique allowed to have more wives than the other men of the villages. Being married to a cacique was considered a great honor. The cacique wives and children enjoyed a superior lifestyle and they all lived in the same house. The house of the cacique was rectangular and was made with the same materials as the other houses. Their flat court situated in the center of the village was used for various festivals both religious and secular. During those festivals, they played a ball game that closely resembles modern-day soccer.

The young Tainos kids wore nothing; the men covered their genitalia with cotton cloths. The married women, however, wore short skirts called nagua; the unmarried ones wore headbands. It was part of their culture to flatten their forehead by placing a hard object against it at childbirth. Also the ears and nasal area were pierced; their waist and necks were decorated. The color red was very often used in the decorations of their bodies, which is probably why it is often thought that Tainos had red skin. The Tainos were well groomed. They liked to bathe often. Later, the Spaniards enacted a law forbidding this healthy attitude considering it as harmful to the Indians. The Spaniards believed that frequent bathing would take one’s soul away.

The Tainos had a good defense system since they were often in need to defend themselves against the Island-Caribs. At the time of the conquest, the Tainos were fighting against the Caribs who had invaded the eastern part of Haiti.

Agriculture and Diet

Tainos ate mostly meat and fish, essentially their primary source of protein. They also ate birds, small mammals, snake and any other animals. Their diet also comprised sweet potatoes, beans and peanuts as well as corn. They brought guava from South America as well as animals like agouti and opossum. They had cassava and manioc for staples, which provided flour for them to bake after having extracted the poisonous juice from those roots. They also hunted for bats, snakes, various rodents, worms and other mammals. However, they were not men-eaters!

The Taino practiced a system of agriculture that was maintenance free. They used a shifting method of agriculture to avoid exhausting the soil. Tainos were skilled farmers. Work was allocated according to sex. Hence, men were to clean the fields and fished while women took care of the crop for cultivation, made handicrafts and kept an eye on their children. The women made objects out of clay, such as plates and pots.

Religion

More is known about the Tainos’ religion because Columbus had appointed father Ramon Pane to study their belief system. (Irving Rouse, 1992). Tainos had a system of Gods called Zemis. The two supreme Taino deities were Yucahu, the lord of cassava and the sea and Atabey, Yucahu’ s mother, the goddess of fresh water and human fertility. Other zemis included ancestor’s spirits and spirits believed to be living in trees and rocks. The term "Zemis" was applied to the deities themselves and also to any fetishes representing them. They were made from the remains of ancestors, or some other natural objects. They believed that powerful spirits inhabited those objects. Those zemis were kept on tables at their owners’ home. To the Tainos, the zemis controlled various functions of the universe.

There were three primary religious practices: the religious worship of the zemis themselves, the services performed by medicine men seeking advice and healing procedures from the zemis. Religious agricultural feasts were offered both in thanksgiving and petition to the zemis. During such feast the Tainos would wear special dresses and they painted their body. The priest would present the carved figures of the zemis. During the ceremonies, the cacique would seat on a wooden stool. During the ceremonies, the singing was accompanied with rhytmic drum beating.
As a sign to remove all impurities from the bodies, the people would induced vomiting by "swallowing" a stick. Women would serve bread first to the zemis then to the cacique followed by the other people The Tainos believed in afterlife where the good people would be rewarded.

Little is known of the Tainos. Had their civilization not been destroyed, we would have the chance to know more about the specific aspects of their life like the songs they recited and their literature. At this point we only have the testimony of the Spaniards, the Tainos first western contact (who ironically will also be responsible for their extinction) and the scientific research on their culture that thus far has not been able to produce much more than theories.

A Mere Mirror of The Outward World

REMEMBER

Pre-Columbian Hispaniola—Arawak/Taino Indians

By Bob Corbett, 19 June 1996

Below is an overview of the Arawak/Taino Indians, the original natives of the land today called Haiti (and Dominican Republic). This is not so much an original treatment, but I pulled a lot of material together from about a dozen sources, so it's more like an extended report.

The word genocide is an interesting term. Etymologically it means the killing of an entire gens, a whole people. The word is used a good deal in politically charged language these days with people often charging that some group or other is attempting genocide. Certainly Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich of Germany attempted it on the Jews of Europe, and failed. As far as I know, the only case in history of where complete and total genocide was carried out was here on the island of Hispaniola. The entire GENS, the whole people of the native Americans of the Arawak/Taino people were wiped out.

The topics I treat are:

• Lifestyle of the Arawak/Taino
• Housing and Dress
• Food and Agriculture
• Transportation
• Defense
• Religion and Myth
• The genocidal end of the Arawak/Taino
• Specific Indian leaders at the time of Columbus (The five caciques of the time)

THE ARAWAK/TAINO INDIANS OF THE ISLAND OF HISPANIOLA (HAITI)

On December 6th, 1492 Christopher Columbus landed at Mole St. Nicholas in Haiti's north. Thus began a totally new phase of life on the island of Hispaniola. Most people are aware that Christopher Columbus landed at San Salvador on October 12th, 1492, thus discovering the New World for Spain. Less known is that his second land fall was at Mole St. Nicholas, Haiti on December 1492, or that the first settlement in the New World was La Navidad, on Haiti's north coast. This settlement, which housed sailors from the Santa Maria which sank off Haiti's coast, was founded on December 24th, 1492.

Columbus did not discover a lost or unknown land. There was a flourishing civilization of native Americas. The primary group was the Arawak/Taino Indians. Arawak is the general group to which they belong, and describes especially the common language which this group of native Americans shared. They ranged from Venezuela through the Caribbean and Central America all the way to Florida. However, the particular group of Arawak-speaking people who lived on the island of Hispaniola were the Taino Indians. To keep both names before us, I'll use the term Arawak/Taino to refer to them.

LIFESTYLE OF THE ARAWAK/TAINO

The Arawak/Taino society was basically a very gentle culture. It was characterized by happiness, friendliness and a highly organized hierarchical, paternal society, and a lack of guile. Each society was a small kingdom and the leader was called a caciQUE. At the time of Columbus there were five different kingdoms on the island of Hispaniola. The Indians practiced polygamy. Most men had 2 or 3 wives, but the caciques had as many as 30. It was a great honor for a woman to be married to a cacique. Not only did she enjoy a materially superior lifestyle, but her children were held in high esteem.

HOUSING AND DRESS

The Arawak/Taino used two primary architectural styles for their homes. The general population lived in circular buildings with poles providing the primary support and these were covered with woven straw and palm leaves. They were somewhat like North American teepees except rather than being covered with skins they needed to reflect the warmth of the climate and simply used straw and palm leaves.

The caciques were singled out for unique housing. Their house were rectangular and even featured a small porch. Despite the difference in shape, and the considerably larger buildings, the same materials were used. When the Africans came beginning in 1507 they introduced mud and wattle as primary building materials. However, there is no record of the Arawak/Tainos having used these materials.

The house of the cacique contained only his own family. However, given the number of wives he might have, this constituted a huge family. The round houses of the common people were also large. Each one had about 10-15 men and their whole families. Thus any Arawak/Taino home might house a hundred people.

The houses did not contain much furniture. People slept in cotton hammocks or simply on mats of banana leaves. They also made wooden chairs with woven seats, couches and built cradles for their children.

In addition to houses the typical Arawak/Taino village contained a flat court in the center of the village which was used for ball games and various festivals, both religious and secular. Houses were around this court. This was a hierarchical society, and while there was only one cacique who was paid a tribute (tax) to oversee the village, there were other levels of sub-caciques, who were not paid, but did hold positions of honor. They were liable for various services to the village and cacique. y Stone making was especially developed among the Arawak/Tainos, but they seem not to have used it at all in building houses. It was primarily used for tools and especially religious artifacts.

The men were generally naked, but the women sometimes wore short skirts. Men and women alike adorned their bodies with paint and shells and other decorations.

FOOD AND AGRICULTURE

The Arawak/Taino diet, like ours, centered around meat or fish as the primary source of protein. There never were many wild animals to hunt on Hispaniola, but there were some small mammals which were hunted and enjoyed. They also ate snakes, various rodents, bats, worms, birds, in general any living things they could find with the exception of humans. They were able to hunt ducks and turtles in the lakes and sea. The costal natives relied heavily on fishing, and tended to eat their fish either raw or only partially cooked. Since they did grow cotton on the island, the natives had fishing nets made of cotton. The natives of the interior relied more on agriculture and de-emphasized meat or fish in their diet.

The Arawak/Taino had a developed system of agriculture which was virtually maintenance free. They raised their crops in a conuco, a large mound which was devised especially for farming. They packed the conuco with leaves to protect from soil erosion and fixed a large variety of crops to assure that something would grow, no matter what weather conditions prevailed.

(As an aside I would like to comment that many people in the pre-Columbian Americas had virtually work free agriculture. This system meant that people living in these materially simple social systems had enormous amounts of free time and often developed elaborate religious rites which took a lot of their time, but also had highly developed systems of games and recreation. There are some nice advantages to very simple living and diet!)

One of the Arawak/Taino's primary crops was cassava. This is a root crop from which a poisonous juice must be squeezed. Then it is baked into a bread like slab. The current method of doing this in Haiti produces a flat bread, sort of like a stale burrito or pizza shell. The Arawak/Taino grew corn (maize), squash, beans, peppers, sweet potatoes, yams and peanuts.

They not only had cotton, but they raised tobacco and enjoyed smoking very much. It was not only a part of their social life, but was used in religious ceremonies too.

TRANSPORTATION

The Arawak/Taino had no large animals like horses, oxen or mules to ride or use for work. But they did have river and sea transportation. They used dugout canoes which were cut from a single tree trunk and used with paddles. They could take 70-80 people in a single canoe and even used them for long travels on the sea. These dugouts allowed fishing the few lakes of Hispaniola as well as fishing out a bit off the coast.

DEFENSE

The Arawak/Taino themselves were quite peaceful people, but they did have to defend themselves from the Caribs who were cannibals. The Caribs of this area were centered at what is today Puerto Rico, but some did live in northeast Hispaniola, an area that today is the Dominican Republic. The Caribs were war-like cannibals. They often raided the more peaceful Arawak/Tainos, killing off the men, stealing and holding the women for breeding, and fattening the children to eat.

Thus the Arawak/Taino had some weapons which they used in defense. They used the bow and arrow, and had developed some poisons for their arrow tips. They had cotton ropes for defensive purposes and some spears with fish hooks on the end. Since there were hardwoods on the island, they did have a war club made of macana. This was about 1" thick and reminds one very much of the cocomaque stick used in later Haitian days. They did not develop any armor or specifically defensive weapons (shields, etc.).

RELIGION AND MYTH

The Arawak/Taino were polytheists and their gods were called ZEMI. The zemi controlled various functions of the universe, very much like Greek gods did, or like later Haitian Voodoo lwa. However, they do not seem to have had particular personalities like the Greek and Haitian gods/spirits do.

There were three primary religious practices:

• Religious worship and obeisance to the zemi themselves.
• Dancing in the village court during special festivals of thanksgiving or petition.
• Medicine men, or priests, consulting the zemi for advice and healing. This was done in public ceremonies with song and dance.

There are many stone carvings of zemi which have survived. Hugh Cave in his HAITI: HIGH ROAD TO ADVENTURE reports that some of the stalagmites of the caves of Dondon were carved into zemi. Some of my students on a study trip visited the caves of Dondon but were unable to find and photograph of these carvings. One often sees stone zemi for sale in Haiti, but I have no way of knowing if they are genuine Arawak/Taino archaeological finds, or if they have been remade for tourists!

(As a footnote to this section I might add that Rev. Dr. William Hodges in Limbe, Haiti, is perhaps the most important of those who have done archaeological work in Haiti, and he bills himself as a amateur who does it on the side for pleasure. However, his small museum in Limbe is simply fantastic, and worth the trip, which is only about 45 minutes from Cape Haitien by taptap. He also has a wealth of materials which he has printed over the years. Dr. Hodges, a U.S. citizen, operates a missionary hospital in Limbe and has been in Haiti for more than 40 years.)

One account of the religious agricultural feasts which were offered both in thanksgiving and petition, describes the following features:

• People had special dress for the ceremonies which included paint and feathers. From their knees on down they would be covered in shells.
• The shaman (medicine man or priests) presented the carved figures of the zemi.
• The cacique sat on wooden stool, a place of honor. (There are many surviving stone carvings of the cacique on his stool.)
• There was a ceremonial beating of drums.
• People induced vomiting with a swallowing stick. This was to purge the body of impurities, both a literal physical purging and a symbolic spiritual purging.
• This ceremonial purging and other rites were a symbolic changing before zemi. (transubstantiation)
• Women served bread (a communion rite), first to zemi, then to the cacique followed by the other people. The sacred bread was a powerful protector. (The interesting similarities between this ritual and the Christian practice of eucharist is obvious!)
• Finally came an oral history lesson -- the singing of the village epic in honor of the cacique and his ancestors. As the poet recited he was accompanied by a maraca, a piece of hardwood which was beaten with pebbles.

There was an afterlife where the good would be rewarded. They would meet up with dead relatives and friends. Since most of the people they would meet in this paradise were women, it is curious to speculate if it was mainly women who were considered good, or if some other reason accounted for this division of the sexes in the afterlife.

There are many stone religious artifacts which have been found in Haiti. The zemi take on strange forms like toads, turtles, snakes, alligators and various distorted and hideous human faces.

The zemi, as well as dead caciques, have certain powers over the natural world and must be dealt with. Thus these various services are ways of acknowledging their power (worship and thanksgiving) and at the same time seeking their aid. Because of these powers there are many Arawak/Tanio stories which account for the origins of some experienced phenomena in myth and or magic. Several myths had to do with caves. The sun and moon, for example, came out of caves. Another story tells that the people lived in caves and only came out at night. One guard was supposed to watch carefully over people to be sure they were well divided in the land. However, one day he was late in returning and the sun caught him and turned him into a stone pillar. (Shades of Lot's wife!)

Another Indian became angry at the sun for its various tricks and decided to leave. He convinced all the women to abandon their men and come with him along with their children. But, the children were deserted, and in their hunger they turned into frogs. The women simply disappeared. This left the men without women. But, they did find some sexless creatures roaming around and eventually captured them. (Actually they used people with a disease like mange since they had rough hands and could hold on to these elusive creatures.) However, they tied these creatures up and put woodpeckers on them. The birds, thinking these were trees started pecking on them and carved out the sex organs of women, thus re-establishing the possibility of survival.

A different myth simply tells that once there were no women. Man brought woman from an island where there were only women.

The origin of the oceans was in a huge flood which occurred when a father murdered his son (who was about to murder the father), and then put his bones in a calabash. The bones turned to fish and then the gourd broke and all the water of the world flowed from the broken gourd.

THE GENOCIDAL END OF THE ARAWAK/TAINO INDIANS

There is a great debate as to just how many Arawak/Taino inhabited Hispaniola when Columbus landed in 1492. Some of the early Spanish historian/observers claimed there were as many as 3,000,000 to 4,000,000. These numbers seem to be based on very little reliable evidence and are thought to be gross exaggerations. However, since nothing like a census was done, the methods for estimating the numbers are extremely shaky, whether by these early historians or later critics.

One long technical article on the population comes in the with the low estimate of 100,000. Several other modern scholars seem to lean more forcefully in the area of 300,000 to 400,000. Whatever the number, what happened to them is extremely tragic. They were not immune to European diseases, especially smallpox, and the Spanish worked them unmercifully in the mines and fields. By 1507 the Spanish were settled and able to do a more reliable job of counting the Arawak/Tainos. It is generally agreed that by 1507 their numbers had shrunk to 60,000. By 1531 the number was down to 600. Today there are no easily discerned traces of the Arawak/Tanio at all except for some of the archaeological remains that have been found. Not only on Hispaniola, but also across the Windward Passage in Cuba, complete genocide was practiced on these natives.

Disease was a major cause of their demise. However, on Columbus' 2nd voyage he began to require a tribute from the Arawak/Tainos. They were expected to yield a certain quantity of gold per capita. Failing that each adult of 14 was required to submit 25lbs. of cotton. For those who could not produce the cotton either, there was a service requirement for them to work for the Spanish. This set the stage for a system of assigning the Arawak/Taino to Spanish settlers as effective slave labor. This system contributed significantly to their genocide.

In Sidney Lintz's interesting introduction to James Leyburn's THE HAITIANS, he argues that not only did the Indians die out, but nearly all cultural traces did too. He says this is a very unusual phenomenon. Haiti's culture is almost entirely African and European. There are some anthropologists who believe that some Voodoo rites, and especially the Petwo Voodoo rites, might have their origins in Arawak/Taino religion, but this is speculative.

Regardless, it does seem that the Arawak/Tainos disappeared without a trace. Michel Laguerre does caution that despite the early date of the demise of the Arawak/Taino, numbers of them did last long enough to have worked alongside the African slaves who were being brought to Haiti in increasing numbers. Laguerre suggests that there would probably have been some inter-mating and thus it is highly unlikely that Indian blood completely died out in Haiti, even though their cultural heritage did disappear without a trace.

SPECIFIC INDIAN LEADERS AT THE TIME OF COLUMBUS

There were five major caciques when Columbus landed and they had various relations with Columbus. These caciques, their provinces and relations with the Spanish were:

1. Cacique Guacanagaric—The province of Marien (Bainoa)

This province was on the north east coast + interior, in the area of the bay of Samana in the Dominican Republic.

He wanted Columbus to protect him from the marauding Caribs who often came into this area, and he became a friendly adviser to Columbus and a lifelong friend of the Spanish invaders. His own village was about 2 miles SE of Cap Haitien.

2. Cacique Caonabo—The province of Ciguayos (Cayabo or Maguana)

After the Spanish settlers at La Navidad perpetrated many horrors on local natives, Caonabo led a band which crossed into the province of Maden and killed all the sailors.

Caonabo then became the rallying point for resistance to the Spanish. Under a pretext of making peace, Columbus lured Caonabo into a trap. The Spaniard Ojeda gave Caonabo a gift of polished iron chains and handcuffs. Mistaking them for ornaments, Caonabo allowed himself to be chained and taken away. Columbus then sent him off to Spain.

Caonabo's brother, Manicatoex, then led an uprising. The Spanish, with their superior firepower crushed the natives and the defeated Arawak/Taino were forced to agree to pay tribute to the Spanish.

There seems to be some unclarity among scholars about these natives. Some claim that these Indians were not from the Arawak/Taino group, but some other tribe. lt does seem that an earlier group, the Ciboney, did live in this area. But, it's not clear if at the time of Caonabo these were Arawak/ Taino or not.

3. Cacique Guarionex—The province of Magua (Huhabo)

This was a densely populated area. This was good inland agricultural land. In 1494 Guarionex was made to submit, then was imprisoned. The Spanish raped his wife in front of him, then executed him. They suspected him of being involved in the attack which Caonabo led on La Navidad.

(A brief digression on La Navidad. Columbus landed at Mole St. Nicholas on Dec. 6, 1492, his second land fall in the New World. On Dec. 24, 1492 he was sailing away and on Christmas Eve the Santa Maria ran aground and sank off the north coast of Haiti, just near Cap Haitien. The Pinta was lost and the Nina could not accommodate all the sailors. Thus Columbus, with the help of Arawak/Taino, salvaged a good deal of the Santa Maria and built a small fort called La Navidad (The Nativity) and left a group of sailors there.)

On his return on the second voyage all the sailors were discovered to have been killed. It seems that they began to violate native women and property and the natives rose up against them.)

4. Cacique Behechio—The province of Xaragua

This was in the southwest peninsula. They grew lots of cotton here and also in the cul de sac, north of where Port-au-Prince lies today.

Behechio's sister was Anacaona, widow of Caonabo. After the Spanish killed Caonabo and Behechio, she succeeded her husband in Xaragua and was much loved by her people. However, the Spanish were threatened by this popularity and the power that went with it. Ovando, a successor to Columbus, went to her village under the pretext of collecting the Spanish tribute. Despite Anacaona's instructions to the people to be fully cooperative and hospitable, and despite her own friendly welcome, the Spanish began a slaughter, burned the village and took Anacaona prisoner. She was hanged at Santo Domingo.

5. Cacique Cotubanama or Cayacoa—The province of Higuey (Caizcimu)

There were rumors of there being gold in Higuey. De Las Casas reported that infinite was the number of people l saw burned alive in order that the people tell where the nonexistent gold was. (I'll do a separate piece on De Las Casas, a most interesting fellow.)

After the death of Anacaona, Cotubanama too was considered dangerous. The Spanish attacked his province, captured him and hung him in Santo Domingo.

--------------------------

Besides the fact that these natives unjustly slaughtered, it seems that this article is one sided favoring the the Indians.

Behind the Mirror

CARIBBEAN TAINO ART MERMAID WOOD SCULPTURE HOME DECOR

Unearthing Evidence of a Caribbean massacre

The Taino Indigenous News Service (TINS)

The Los Angeles Times, [21 August 1997]

ON A REMOTE tip of the Dominican Republic, researchers believe they have discovered the site of one of the most brutal and bloody massacres of Indians by Spanish conquistadors.

The battle is well documented in Spanish texts, but the discovery of the remains of the settlement provides the first archeological documentation of the episode and of the peace-loving Taino people who lived there. Details of the expedition were revealed recently at a meeting of the Society for California Archeology in Rohnert Park, near Santa Rosa, Calif.

This is the most important archeological discovery in the Caribbean in the last twenty-five to fifty years, said Pedro Morales, head of East National Park, where the city was discovered.

Only 11 years after Columbus discovered the New World, a Spanish army led by legendary explorer Ponce de Leon and others destroyed the unnamed Taino settlement, slaughtering as many as 7,000 residents. The barbaric incident was one of the first in a 50-year period of conquest in which disease and slaughter wiped out the Taino population of more than 1 million on the island of Hispaniola.

Exploring the dense forest around a sinkhole so isolated that it could be reached only by mule trains or helicopters, the archeology team discovered four large ceremonial plazas and the remains of a city that once may have held tens of thousands of people.

Our findings should yield priceless information about the first contact between the Spanish and the Indians in the New World, said archeologist Charles Beeker of the Indiana University School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation, who led the expedition. We had the Spanish record. Now we have the Tainal record.

Now we can measure historical accounts against archeological features, added California state archeologist John W. Foster, who was part of the expedition. That's fairly rare in this region.

Even though they were the first Indians to greet Columbus, the Taino are now largely forgotten. Before Columbus arrived, the Taino built a network of at least five independent kingdoms across the island, which now comprises the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

Skilled at agriculture and hunting, the Taino were also good sailors, canoe makers and navigators. In their cities they built large plazas, surrounded by stone walls, where they held religious ceremonies, recited the news and played ball games that were similar to soccer.

The Taino left behind a few cultural reminders. The hammock, the musical instrument known as the maracas and the making of cassava bread were innovations of the Taino (pronounced tah-EE-noh). The English word barbecue also comes from the Taino term for the rock slabs on which they baked bread.

The Taino are generally viewed as an unusually peaceful group, but their serenity had been disrupted 100 years before Columbus by an invading South American tribe called the Caribs. Fierce, warlike and sadistic, the cannibalistic Caribs raided Taino villages, capturing women for slaves and men for dinner.

The disruption of the Taino social structure by these incursions probably made it much easier for the Spanish to conquer them, scholars speculate.

Beeker and his colleagues have been exploring in the eastern Dominican Republic since 1993, looking for Columbus-era shipwrecks. Morales told them about a cave that contained pictographs and suggested they investigate it.

Helicoptered into the area by the Dominican air force, the scientists discovered an 18-foot mural on the cave walls commemorating the signing of a treaty under which the Spanish purchased bread from the Taino. The elaborate display even showed the Spanish galleons that shipped the bread to nearby Santo Domingo. Other pictographs showed Taino daily life.

But the real find was a nearby sinkhole harboring a freshwater well, although getting to it was a problem. The crew had to pass through a narrow opening on the surface and rappel 50 feet to the water, then dive from an inflatable boat through 140 feet of water.

I've been diving for thirty-five years, but I had never rappelled in my life, Beeker said. After a short preliminary investigation, he returned to the United States and enrolled the team in a rappelling class before revisiting the site, called Manantial de la Aleta, in November and again in March.

The team made about 80 dives into the well, Foster said. Because of the depth, they were limited to only 11 minutes on the bottom each time.

We were shocked at the amount of ceramics and the diversity of other things we found, Beeker said.

They recovered baskets, wooden war clubs, carved and decorated gourds, and a variety of pottery - one piece of which clearly showed a melding of Taino and Spanish styles. And because of the depth of the water and the lack of oxygen, all were remarkably well preserved.

The items discovered include some of the most elaborate artifacts that the Taino made, and we were puzzled as to how they could have been thrown down this hole and deposited in the water, Foster said. In one or two cases, they even contain food remains. They are more consistent with the idea of offerings and ceremonies.

The team thus believes that the well was not a garbage dump but rather a ceremonial well, called a cenote, where the Taino made sacrifices to their gods. Although such cenotes are not rare in South and Central America, this was the first Taino cenote discovered.

The importance of the ceremonial well suggested there must have been a settlement nearby, and in the most recent visit the team began scouting through the dense forest and brush for signs of it. The first hint was found by Indiana sophomore Chris Gonso, who was looking for deposits of shells and encountered a snake instead.

I was kind of running from that and got on top of a pile of rocks, Gonso said. Then I noticed it was a long line of rocks. The rocks turned out to be the walls of a ceremonial plaza.

The team found two other plazas, each about 75 yards long and 15 yards wide, on that expedition. Dominican archeologist Marcio Veloz Maggiolo recently found a fourth. The presence of so many plazas, Beeker said, suggests the site was a sizable and important city.

The team now believes the city was the site of a 1503 massacre reported by the Spanish missionary Bartolome de las Casas. That incident marked one of the first major clashes between the Taino and the Spaniards, and set the Indians on the path to annihilation.

Copyrights The Los Angeles Times

Respectfully yours,
Ms. Beverly Carey Torres, Secretary

The Taino Inter-Tribal Council Inc.
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/taino/

The Taino Tribal Council of Jatibonuco NJ
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/taino/jatibonuco.html

The Taino Tribal Council of Jatibonicu PR
http://www.algorithms.com/users/torresp/jatiboni.html

The Taino Indigenous People Of The Caribbean f Florida
We The Taino People Who Discovered Columbus In 1492

Please wait

Image not available

Leave it to Beaver

The O.sage Indians, their name came from the river along which they warred and hunted, but their proper title, as they called themselves, was "the Wabashas,"(Ma carrying the message connected to Skull and Bones Freemasonry) and from them, in later years, we derive the familiar name of Wabash. A curious tradition of this people, according to the journal of Lewis and Clark(the beavers), is that the founder of the nation was a snail, passing a quiet existence along the banks of the Os.age, till a high flood swept him down to the Missouri, and left him exposed on the shore. The heat of the sun at length ripened him into a man; but the change of his nature he had forgotten his native seats on the Osage, towards which he immediately bent his way.

He was however, soon overtaken by hunger and fatigue, when happily, the Great Spirit appeared, and, giving him a bow and arrow, showed him how to kill and cook a deer, and cover himself with the skin. He then proceeded to his original residence; but as he approached the river he was met by a beaver, who inquired haughtily who he was, and by what authority he came to disturb his possession. The Osage answered that the river was his own, for he had once lived on its borders. As they stood disputing, the daughter of the beaver came, and having, by her entreaties, reconciled her father to this young stranger, it was proposed that the Osage should marry the younger beaver, and share with her family the enjoyment of the river. The Osage readily consented, and from this union there soon came the village and the nation if the Wabasha, or Osages, who have ever since preserved a pious reverence for their ancestors, abstaining from the chase of the beaver, because in killing that animal they killed a brother of the Osage.

BUILD AND DESTROY

BEAvers are very skillful in building their houses. The simplest form is merely a burrow, opening under the water, ans so concealed. But the most interesting kind of house is the lodge. There are three distinct kinds. The "island-lodge" is built on a small island in a pond. There are two entrances, both underneath; one is straight, through which the wood for winter food is passed; the other called the "beaver entrance," is often winding in its course. Both these entrances open into a moat around the house, too deep to freeze easily, so the beaver are not apt to be shut in. Another kind of lodge is built of the BANK of a stream or pond, and a third kind called the "lake lodge," is built on the sloping shores of lakes, with a large part of the hut out upon the water.

Their legendary dam building skills are stimulated by the sound of running water. If beavers notice that the water levels are falling after their dam is built they will seek out the cause and block it with more wood, mud and vegetation. People used to assume this was a uniquely intelligent act but experiments with the tape recorded sound of running water in a dry field have caused beavers to try and create a dam on top of the tape recorder. A less than practical response.

The REAL Light Giver

Ploytheism

"The famous secret of the mysteries was the unity of the Godhead"
-War.b.ur.ton

Never Stop Asking Questions (Seeking)

KEEPER OF THE PAST

REASON MARRIED WITH INTUITION

It is only the animal in you that is alive. I was taught that the eye of the world which is watching me, is the same eye with which I am watching the world. This eye is neither cheerful nor evil, neither feeling nor expectant. It is indifferent like water. She is my past, we were/are one, that is why I yearn for her. Without her I wouldn't know where to go.

GROW YOUR HAIR TO ACCESS CELLULAR MEMORY

Who Does She Work For?(HAL) (Ten Parts)

'Do not go gently into that good night ... Rage, rage against the dying of the duality of genders'.

The Pageite Wars

From One, by Richard Bach, 1988, Pan Books. Chapter 10, pp118-129.

Where we stopped, grass spread around us like an emerald pond cupped in mountains. Sunset flamed from crimson clouds.

Switzerland, I thought at once, we've landed on a Swiss postcard. Away down in the valley was a sweep of trees, sudden houses, high peaked roofs, a church steeple. There was a cart on the village road, pulled not by tractor or horse but by some kind of cow.

I saw no one nearby, not a path, not a goat-trail. Just this lake of grass, sprinkled with wildflowers, half-circled by snowcapped rocky steeps.

"Now why do you suppose...." I said. "Where are we?"

"France," said Leslie. She said it without thinking and before I could ask her how she knew, she caught her breath. "Look."

She pointed to a cleft in the rock, where an old man in a coarse brown robe knelt on the ground near a small campfire. He was welding; brilliant yellow-white flickered and danced on the rocks behind him.

"What's a welder doing up here?" I asked. She watched him for a moment. "He's not welding" she said, as though she were remembering the scene instead of observing it. "He's praying."

She set off toward him and I followed, deciding to stay quiet. As I had seen myself in Attila, was my wife seeing herself in this hermit?

Closer and we saw sure enough, that was no welding torch. No sound, no smoke, it was a flaring sun-color pillar pulsing above the ground less than a yard from the elder.

"... and to the world shall you give, as you have received," came a gentle voice from the light. "Give to all who yearn to know the truth from whence we come, the reason for our being, and the course that lies ahead on the way to our forever home."

We stopped a few yards behind him, transfixed by the sight. I had seen that brilliance once before in my life, years ago, had been stunned by one accidental glimpse of what to this day I still call Love. The light we saw this moment was the same, so radiant it rendered the world a footnote, a dim asterisk.

Then, next instant, the light was gone. Beneath the place where it had been lay a sheaf of golden paper, a scripture in grand calligraphy.

The man knelt silent, eyes closed, unaware of our presence.

Leslie walked forward, reached for the glowing manuscript, picked it up. In this mystical place, her hand did not pass through the parchment.

Expecting runes or hieroglyphics, we found words in English. Of course, I thought. The old man would read them as French, a Persian as Farsi. So it must be with revelation -- it's not the language that matters, but the communication of ideas.

You are creatures of light, we read. From light have you come, in light shall you go, and surrounding you through every step is the light of your infinite being.

She turned a page.

By your choice dwell you now in the world which you have created. What you hold in your heart shall be true, and what most you admire, that shall you become.

Fear not, nor be dismayed at the appearance that is darkness, at the disguise that is evil, at the empty cloak that is death, for you have picked these for your challenges. They are the stones on which you choose to whet the keen edge of your spirit. Know that ever about you stands the reality of love, and each moment you have the power to transform your world by what you have learned.

The pages went on, hundreds of them. We leafed through, struck in awe.

You are life, inventing form. No more can you die on sword or years than you can die on doorways through which you walk, one room into another. Every room gives its word for you to speak, every passage its song for you to sing.

Leslie looked at me, her eyes luminous. If this writing could touch us so, I thought, we from the twentieth century, what effect would it have on people from the whatever-this-was ... the twelfth!

We turned back to the manuscript. No words of ritual no directions for worship, no calling down fire and destruction on enemies, no disasters for unbelievers, no cruel Attila-gods. It didn't mention temples or priests or rabbis or congregations or choirs or costumes or holy days. It was scripture written for the loving inner being, and for that being only.

Tum these ideas loose in this century, I thought, a key to recognize our power over belief, unleash the power of love, and terror will vanish. With this, the world can sidestep the Dark Ages!

The old man opened his eyes, saw us at last, and stood as unafraid as if he'd read the scripture through. He glanced at me, looked a long moment at Leslie.

I am Jean-Paul Le Clerc," he said. "And you are angels."

Before we recovered from our puzzlement the man laughed, joyfully. "Did you notice," he said, "the Light?"

''Inspiration!" said my wife, handing him the golden pages.

"Inspiration, indeed." He bowed as though he remembered her, and she, at least, were an angel. "These words are key to the truth for any who will read, they are life to those who will listen. When I was a child, the Light promised that the pages would come to my hand on the night you should appear. Now that I am old, you have come, and they."

"They will change the world," I said.

He looked at me strangely. "No."

"But they were given to you...."

"… in test," he said.

"Test?"

I have traveled far," he said, "I have studied scriptures of a hundred faiths, from Cathay to the Norselands." His eyes twinkled. "And in spite of my study, I have learned. Every grand religion begins in light. Yet only hearts hold light. Pages cannot."

"But you have in your hands. . . ." I said. "You must read it. It's beautiful!"

"I have paper in my hands," said the elder. "Give these words to the world, and they will be loved and understood by those who already know their truth. But before we give them we must name them. And that will be their death."

"To name a beautiful thing is to kill it?"

He looked at me surprised. "To name a thing is harmless. To name these ideas is to create a religion."

"Why?"

He smiled, handing me the manuscript. "I give these pages to you ...?"

"Richard," I told him.

"I give these pages directly from the Light of Love to you, Richard. Do you want to give them in turn to the world, to people yearning to know what they say, to ones who have not been privileged to stand at this place in the moment the gift was given? Or do you want to keep this writing for yourself alone?"

"I want to give them, of course!"

"And what will you call your gift?"

What is he getting at, I wondered. "Does it matter?"

"If you do not name it, others will. They will call it The Book of Richard."

"I see. All right. I'll call it anything ... the pages."

"And will you safeguard The Pages? Or will you allow others to edit them, to change what they don't understand, to strike out what they please, whatever is not to their liking?"

"No! No changes. They were delivered from the light! No changes!"

"Are you sure? Not a line here and there, for good reason? 'Most people won't understand?' 'This might offend?' 'The message isn't clear?'"

"No changes!"

He raised his eyebrows, questioning. "Who are you to insist?"

I was here when they were given," I said. "I saw them appear, myself!"

"So," he said, "you have become the Keeper of the Pages?"

"Doesn't have to be me. It can be any one as long as they promise no changes."

"But someone is Keeper of the Pages?"

"Someone. I suppose."

"And here begins the Pageite priesthood. Those who give their lives to protect an order of thinking become the priests of that order. Yet any new order, any new way, is change. And change is the end of the world as it is."

"These pages are no threat," I said. "They're love and freedom!"

"And love and freedom are the end of fear and slavery."

"Of course!" I said, vexed. What was he getting at? Why was Leslie standing silent? Didn't she agree that this was….

"Those who profit from fear and slavery," said Le Clerc, "will they be happy with the message of the Pages?"

"Probably not, but we can't let this ... light ... be lost!"

"Will you promise to protect the light?' he said.

"Of course!"

"The other Pageites, your friends, they'll protect it too?"

"Yes."

"And if the profiteers in fear and slavery convince the king of this land that you are dangerous, if they march on your house, if they come with swords, how are you going to protect the Pages?"

"I'll take them away! I'll escape!"

"And when you're followed, and caught, and cornered?"

"If I have to fight, I'll fight," I said. "There are principles more important than life. Some ideas are worth dying for."

"The old man sighed. "And so began the Pageite Wars," he said. "Armor and swords and shields and banners, horses and fire and blood in the streets. They will not be small wars. Thousands of true believers will join you, tens of thousands, swift and strong and smart. But the principles of the Pages challenge the rulers of every nation that keeps its power through fear and darkness. Tens of thousands will ride against you."

At last it began to dawn, what Le Clerc was trying to tell me.

"To be known," he went on, "to be distinguished from others, you will need a symbol. What symbol will you choose? What sign will you strike upon your banners?"

My heart sank under the weight of his words, but I struggled on.

"The symbol of light," I said. "The sign of the flame."

"And so shall it be," he said, reading history unwritten, "that the Sign of the Flame shall meet the Sign of the Cross on the battlefields of France, and the Flame shall prevail, a glorious victory, and the first cities of the Cross shall be leveled by your pure fire. But the Cross shall join with the Crescent, and together their armies shall swarm in from the south and the east and down from the north, a hundred thousand armed men to your eighty thousand."

Oh, stop, I wanted to say. I know what comes next.

"And for every soldier of the Cross and warrior of the Crescent whom you kill protecting your gift, a hundred will hate your name. Their fathers and mothers, their wives and daughters and sons and friends will hate the Pageites and the cursed Pages for the murder of their loved ones, and every Pageite will despise every Christian and cursed Cross and every Moslem and cursed Crescent for the murder of their own."

"No!" I cried. Every word he said was true.

"And during the Wars, altars will spring up, cathedrals and spires will rise to enshrine the Pages. Those reaching for growth and understanding will find themselves burdened instead with new superstitions and new limits: bells and symbols, rules and chants, ceremonies and prayers and vestments, incense and offerings of gold. The heart of Pageism will turn from love to gold. Gold to build greater temples, gold to buy swords to convert the non-believers and save their souls."

"And when you die, First Keeper of the Pages, gold to build images of you. There will be towering statues, grand frescoes, paintings to commit this scene to immortal art. See, woven in this tapestry: here the Light, there the Pages, there the vault of the sky opened to Paradise. Here kneels Richard the Great in gleaming armor, here the lovely Angel of Wisdom, the Hallowed Pages in her hand; here old Le Clerc at his humble campfire in the mountains, witness to the vision."

No! I thought. Impossible!

But it wasn't impossible, it was inevitable.

"Give these pages to the world, and there shall be another mighty religion, another priesthood, another Us and another Them, one set against the other. In a hundred years, a million will have died for the words we hold in our hands; in a thousand years, tens of millions. All for this paper.

"There was no trace of bitterness in his voice, nor did it grow cynical or weary. Jean-Paul Le Clerc was filled with a lifetime's learning, calm acceptance of what he had found.

Leslie shivered.

"Do you want my jacket?" I said.

"No thank you, wookie," she said. "It's not the cold."

"Not the cold," said Le Clerc. He stooped and picked a brand from his fire, raised it to touch the golden pages. "This will warm you."

"No!" I jerked the sheaf away. "Burn the truth?"

"The truth doesn't burn. The truth waits for anyone who wishes to find it," he said. "Only these pages will burn. It is your choice. Would you like Pageism to become the next religion in this world?" He smiled. "You will be saints of the church. . . ."

I looked to Leslie, saw the horror in her eyes that I felt in my own.

She took the brand from him, touched it to the comers of the parchment. The blaze grew to a wide sun-white blossom under our fingers, and in a moment we let the bright shards fall to the ground. They burned a moment longer and went dark.

The old man sighed his relief. "What a blessed evening!" he said. "How rarely are we given the chance to save the world from a new religion!"

"Then he faced my wife, smiling hopefully. "We did save it?"

She smiled back at him. "We did. There is not a word in our history, Jean-Paul Le Clerc, of the Pageites or their wars."

They looked a tender goodbye to each other, skeptic to loving skeptic. Then with a small bow to both of us, the old man turned and walked up the mountain into the dark.

The fiery pages still burned in my mind, inspiration turned to ash.

"But the ones who need what those pages had to say," I said to Leslie. "How can they ... how can we learn what was written there?"

"He's right," she said, looking after the man until she could see him no more, "whoever wants truth and light can find it for themselves."

"I'm not sure. Sometimes we need a teacher."

She turned to me. "Try this," she said. "Pretend that you honestly truly deeply want to know who you are, where you came from and why you're here. Pretend you're willing never to rest till you know."

I nodded and imagined myself non-stop determined resolute, eager to learn, combing libraries for books and back-issues, haunting lectures and seminars, keeping diaries of my hopes and speculation, writing intuitions, meditating on mountaintops, following leads from dreams and coincidence, asking strangers -- all the steps we take when learning matters more than anything. "OK."

"Now," she said, "can you imagine yourself not finding out?"

Whuf, I thought. How this woman can make me see!

I bowed in answer. "My Lady Le Clerc, Princess of Knowing."

She curtsied slowly in the dark. "My Lord Richard, Prince of the Flame."

Close and silent in the clear mountain air, I took her in my arms, the stars no longer above but around us. We were one with the stars, one with Le Clerc, with the pages and their love, one with Pye and Tink and Atkin and Attila, one with everything that is, that ever was or will be. One.

My Own Book of Life

Pure Knowledge is not imparted by another; it comes unmasked. It is the one that is listening; it is your true nature.

"Y" Conspiracy

She is one of many. She is taking part in an auction. She exists through her love affair. But she doesn't know that it is not her who sets the price, the value in this market, that the hand which fumbles inside her and which cruelly turns her glands inside out, is the hand of the very principle of the market. The murderous Hand or Eye, which finds the pleasure in seeing how the actors, lustful like dogs are wearing out.. You are the only man without a secret. You speak about it but you don't believe. You are like an animal following a scent. Still the same. You are an actress playing the value of the feeling, its transcience. You are a biology, speculating about the mystery through your belly into which you lead the heat, which you in turn take to be yourself.