(@data.archival)
392 posts - 7.53k followers - 6490 following
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♾️♾️♾️ Following the Ituri group’s visit to Britain where they were viewed as novelties only ‘discovered’ by the modern West in 1873, Harrison claimed that their written history dated back to the Greeks who had first coined the term ‘Pygmaioi’ - First mentioned in the C.8th BC by Greek poet Homer who refers to ‘Pygmaian men’ at ‘constant war’ with heron-like cranes, Greek historian Herodotus c.450 BC described an expedition to the far south of Africa attacked by “little men”, while Aristotle also spoke of cranes migrating “to the marshlands south of Egypt where the Nile has its source. And it is here that they are said to fight with the pygmies”. Roman author Pliny likewise referred to this crane-hunting “nation of Pygmies, which dwells among the marshes in which the river Nile takes its rise”, such colorful tales also inspiring artistic scenes of ‘Pygmaian’ figures so closely associated with the Nile they were by then regarded as “the guardians of its headwaters” Then once the Romans seized Egypt in 30 BC, they began to portray the Egyptians themselves as ‘pygmies’, literally reducing those they had conquered by showing them “naked and largely defenseless, depicted with the physiognomy of dwarfs”. Indeed, ‘dwarfs’ and ‘pygmies’ are often conflated by modern writers, although medical expertise clearly differentiates between “pygmies, i.e. the normally small races of men from the interior of Africa, and dwarfs, which are pathological cases” of those born with achondroplasia. With both regarded as special beings in ancient Egypt where “short stature was…. a divine mark”, the Egyptians likewise used separate terms, with ‘nemi’ - dwarf - describing those who held high office at the Egyptian court from c.2500 BC onwards. The protective household god Bes was also portrayed as an achondroplastic dwarf, with his amulets worn both in life and in death, when their “resemblance to newborns helped facilitate resurrection” within funeral dances.
“…There on the horizon was a beautiful multi-coloured arch – a rainbow. But the Aboriginals thought that it was a serpent moving from one waterhole to another and they were frightened as they did not want the huge brightly-coloured serpent in a waterhole near their camp. But they were grateful that he did not seem to be moving too near their own waterhole. One young man, wanted to know more about the Rainbow Serpent so when he returned home, he asked the old men of his tribe why the hunters had been scared of the Rainbow Serpent. The old men told him that the Rainbow Serpent was one of the Dreamtime creatures who had shaped the Earth.“
here comes the sun.
“the eye we are told is a camera, but the film is the heart not the brain.”
acoustic mirroring - histories of reflective material/non-material
🛰️🛰️🛰️ shot + edited this video for @robalugibsun / track: gunsmoke - album: ‘ill be right black!’