Re: [Paddlewise] PaddleWise V1 #1540

Peter Chopelas wrote:

> So there you have it.  Clearly other considerations went into the kayak
and
> paddle design than good cursing performance.
>

How true, How true.

Hardly a day passes that some sweet young thing oozing Christian passion
(orthodox or un-orthodox one cannot always tell from their short skirts)
approaches me and tugging at my jerkin asks "Professor, did not the Inuit
and Aleuts emphasize the cursing value of their paddles to the detriment of
their paddling performance? Huh, didn't they?"

While it has a nice ring to it - one cannot help but think of the ancient
Egyptian cursing sticks and imagines them deriving from cursing paddles
dropped on them by Inuit explorers riding giant Rossby waves across Africa
in their crotch dirigibles much as American showered the Vietnamese with
propaganda tracts during that ill fated war - I have to explain to them that
a paddle, as the Aleuts and Inuit used them, was a multipurpose tool.
While the Inuit and Aleuts cursed mightily and frequently (aided by their
versatile cursing paddles) their very lives depended upon being able to fend
off Arctic Amazons and witches intent upon stealing their masculinity or
just plain killing them for a quick meal. Arctic Amazons have a fondness for
human flesh which is why you find so few bones buried in the north. After a
hearty
meal of Inuit hunter the Amazons would cast the bones into the ocean where
they would freeze and become part of the great arctic ice pack eventually to
be redistributed in southern climes when the ice pack melted much to the
consternation of South American anthropologists. It was by the narrow
paddles that Inuit and Aleut hunters identified themselves at a distance
from the he Amazons who used wide blade paddles. A hunter would see
the wide blade flashing in the sun and paddle as fast as he could to escape.
When he saw a narrow blade he knew it was a friend. Unfortunately, while the
narrow blade clearly identified friend from foe, the Arctic Amazons would
easily overtake the men due to the superior performance of their wide
blades and were rarely denied their pleasure.

Perhaps it is the string of epithets emanating from the fleeing male hunter
that led to the name "cursing paddle" . One can easily imagine   the hunter
screaming at the top of his lungs  "_at_$%^E^&&$ paddle. $&*(*)() paddle.
**&$^%# paddle". The thought of being invited to dinner as the main course
or even worse would lead most people cursing.

I am reminded of the story about a young American engineer and the three
Inuit maidens. But, that is an story for another time and place.

But I digress.

While the Inuit placed great stock in the cursing value of their paddles
they also designed them around sound hydrodynamic principles. The Inuit were
the only people to solve quadratic equations using an abacus and
mathematically developed the concept of circulation long before Indian
mathematicians invented the zero. European explorers would have heard of
this had they only been able to speak the language properly. What they
thought was, "Lots of seals over there" was really a discussion of tank
testing and hydrodynamic theory. What a shame they had only Pingo walls to
write upon and a shame they had no symbols for the square root or
derivatives or whatever. Who knows what great mathematical discoveries were
lost when they found it more profitable to hunt seals etc. for Euro dollars
than to study math. We see the pattern repeated today among North American
youth who have found it more profitable to learn to play games with balls
than to study the sciences.

Now, I know what you are thinking, does the professor have any proof that
the Inuit cursing paddle actually works.

I have personally tried a cursing paddle on two of my ex-wives but to no
avail despite following  Tugulak's Shaman's Guide precisely.  I did find
that a good slap up 'side the head works wonders at getting an ex-wife's
attention although this is better done with a wide blade paddle. In short,
the perceived value of the cursing paddle may have a lot in common with its
perceived paddling value. I.E. Mostly in then head.

I cannot forebear but to comment on the use of red paint in Aleut kayaks.
They used red because that is what they had. If the Czar had sent white
Russians they would have used white paint. One shudders at the thought of
puce Russians. The Inuit had no squeamishness about blood unlike the British
sailor who would whimper in the scuppers at the sight of blood. That is why
the British warships had red decks. There were few British blue bloods
serving in the Navy or they would have used blue paint.

Abraham Lincoln (Just wait you will see the connection) said that God must
have loved the common man because he made so many of them. A critic
reportedly responded that he made so many of them because they were so much
easier to make than exceptional men. Thus it similarly applies to the narrow
paddle. Any one can make a narrow paddle and think of some good reason why
it turns his crank. It takes a woman (Arctic Amazon) to make a wide paddle
that really does the job.


Regards,

Prof. Peregrine Inverbon Phd, LLd, DD etc. etc.

Transcribed by his humble servant John Winters - and we are not the same
person despite rumours to the contrary.




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