Razor's Edge

TorgoX on 2003-09-01T09:54:51

Dear Log,

The other day, I was doing some document conversion for the Haida Language Program (the Haidas are a SE-Alaskan group), and in with the megs and megs of language datae, I found this:

«The world is like a knife blade.
When you are walking watch your step.
You will "fall off the edge of the earth".

On hearing this Haida philosophy of world view, a young lad ridiculed it by prancing around and saying, "Hey, look I'm falling off of the world." While prancing around he stepped on a fish bone and developed fish poisoning and died. Thus the old people say he had fallen off of the world.»

Not the coziest world-view. But then, if I owned slaves, I too would have gotten into the habit of constantly looking over my shoulder.

---

A Story As Sharp As A Knife

brev on 2003-09-01T17:50:11

This book about Haida poetry and art borrows that saying for its title.

I recommend it but it's somewhat heretical, he's not a trained anthropologist but is a poet and scholar of Haida literature. That's his point, he's trying to revise how people think about native art -- not as anthropology but as, well, art.

datae

pne on 2003-09-02T19:21:19

Where do you get this word 'datae' from?

Re:datae

TorgoX on 2003-09-02T19:37:01

Typo.

Re:datae

pne on 2003-09-02T20:01:15

Ah. For a moment there I was worried you were treating data as a Latin feminine singular and making it plural...