Dear Friends, At a recent meeting of the Burk's Falls Sculling and Punting Society (Unofficial Ontario chapter of International Northern Culture and Ethnology Society in Tallahassee, Mr. John Winters suggested that the Paddlewise mailing list might appreciate my humble contributions concerning the ethnology of the noble Inuit people who invented the sea kayak. Mr. Winters is a highly excitable chap when thwarted so I humoured him. Despite his numerous character flaws which are not appropriate for discussion here, I have always paid heed to Mr. Winters even when he is rolling his eyes and baying at the moon. Occasionally he displays keen insight. For instance he deserves credit for the observation that Colombian drug dealers have over 600 words for cocaine and that the Inuit have over 600 words for snow. Concluding that this was too much of a coincidence and, putting two and two together he arrived at five, hypothesising that Colombian drug dealers are in fact a long lost tribe of Inuit who migrated across the Bering Sea Ice Bridge (see note) and found their way to Columbia. Their discovery of cocaine after many years of wandering about the west coast in search of Pamela Anderson explains why cocaine is called "snow". In fact "snow" may have been the first slang name for cocaine (Coke (reg trademark) having not yet been invented as a muscle relaxant for pregnant women in Atlanta, Georgia.) At first I put him off but, as you all no doubt know, he is a persistent fellow and I finally relented under the proviso that he type all my messages. This request was not because I am a lazy lout but because I have a severe case of carpal tunnel syndrome developed while excavating pingos in search of Inuit fetishes. Pingos are, of course, large burial mounds built by the Inuit to honour their most important leaders. As they predate the pyramids by 724.6 years, is it a coincidence that the Egyptians have over 600 words for sand? I think not. We are only just scratching the surface of northern archaeology and it will not surprise me to discover that civilisation began in the north and that it was a change in pole axis alignment that made it appear that man originated in Africa. Sincerely, Professor Lightfoot Inverbon, M.Lit.,Ph.M., D.D.,Ph.D. Special Advisor to the Starr Inquiry Note: The idea that there was once a land bridge across the Bering Straits is fatuous. I myself have put bags of rocks and high quality garden soil in a full bathtub and observed that they did not float. Any Mongolian trying to cross such a bridge would have surely drowned as they did not have certified divers prior to the XIX Dynasty in Egypt. Indeed it is doubtful that they had certified divers before Rameses III. No doubt research was underway at that time for Rameses II married several of his daughters and the offspring were prone to wandering wailing across the Nile without benefit of clergy or Coast Guard approved life jackets. Despite prodigious efforts on Rameses' part his offspring were drowning at an alarming rate. Only the discovery of the aqualung saved the Ramissid Dynasty from and early withdrawal. *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************Received on Sat Mar 28 1998 - 09:30:37 PST
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