The Good The Bad & The Indifferent

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: JeffroK

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

That tree is too young to have been used as Sign. However there is some truth to that folklore. Many things were used in Sign, trees being one.

There were people there before the Cherokee. The Cherokee were a post-DeSoto mixture of a migrating Iroquoian speaking group with elements of local Coosa, Cofaqui and Cofachiqui(Kingdom of the Pearl Lady) along with some other small groups.

A Cherokee, or any person of that time/place would alter a small tree, or it's branches to convey a "Sign" message, and if left in that position long enough it would grow into that position. And the sender or receiver would note it's altered growth over the years and tell it's tale.

Many times a Sign would be undone so as to show it was read, unless it was safer to not let this be known.

Sign to mark trails or landmarks would be a lesser use, as the main use of Sign would be to Twitter a message to someone(s).

On a side note... DeSoto came across entire forests where the distance between the trees were symmetrical.

More likely the tree was little more than a springy sapling when a large tree or branch fell on it and bent it to the ground. The sapling kept on growing while the dead wood on top of it slowly rotted away. Eventually the sapling became a tree that still held the shape it had for years growing up.

But the native lore is interesting too, much like I learned the silverleaf on the NZ flag was a fern that the Maori used when they moved at night. The underside of the fern showed silver in the moonlight so the Maori bent the fern over as they moved to mark their trail - most often when them moved in on enemy tribes and needed a marker for the escape route.

BTW I have never heard of the Cofaqui people, unless some spell it Cofefe ...[;)]

One problem with the story is that there isnt a Silver Fernleaf on the NZ Flag.

I thought they just voted in a new flag with a silver fern on a black background?

[waihi]

Unfortunately NZ voted to keep the old flag, we will still keep being mistaken for Aussies [8D]

[Canoerebel]

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Regarding bent trees, neither the Cherokee nor their predecessors bent trees to mark trails or anything else. There is a large movement contending they did, but that movement is wrong scientifically and historically.

"is wrong scientifically and historically." Since you are so familiar with that tell us about it. And their teepees[;)]
....

The most important thing is to understand that bent trees are formed naturally and occur abundantly in the woods. I can go into the process if anybody wants to know it in detail but I think most of you who have an interest understand that bent trees are perfectly natural.

Those who claim bent trees are of American Indian origin originally claimed that they couldn't have formed naturally. They claimed that the sharp angles were irrefutable signs of the handiwork of mankind - angles that cannot be made by natural forces (I can send you citations to these contentions). So, years ago, these Bent Tree afficionados came across the bent trees, concluded they had to have been shaped by mankind, and came up with the theory that American Indians did the bending. When foresters, biologists and others pointed out that nature forms bent trees all the time, the Bent Tree afficionados dismissed these people as "naysayers and college elites." Eventually, the afficionados finally admitted that the shapes are natural (how else to explain the 5 gazillion bent trees everywhere in the woods and lawns and parks that are 25 or 75 or 150 years old - much too young for the Cherokee to have bent them). But this didn't change their underlying theory. They continued to posit that American Indians did all the bending of the trees of sufficient age - say 200+ years in the southeastern USA.

Then they ran into a historical record that is amazingly silent on the topic. Hundreds or maybe thousands of soldiers, explorers, government emissaries, mapmakers, surveyors, frontiersmen, hunters, adventurers, scientists, geologists, missionaries, and others trapsed the southeastern part of what is now the USA and left detailed diaries, letters, reports, etc. None referred to the practice of American Indians bending trees. For example, William Bartram traveled the southeast extensively in the 1770s and made notes about every little thing. But he didn't mention "trail trees"; he didn't mention the Cherokee or Creek or Seminole doing this kind of thing. Neither did Hawkins or Featherstonehaugh or scores/hundreds of others.

But Bartram noted all kinds of other ways the Cherokee marked trails - they nailed animals skins to trees, used hatchets to create blazes on trees, and cut notches into trees. In the historical records you'll find all kinds of references to "Two Notch Road" and "Three Notch Road" and "Five Notch Road" and so on and so on. But you'll find nothing about bent trees.

And why would Native Americans used bent trees when they occurred so naturally and abundantly? There'd be nothing more potentially confusing and misleading than to use as a "sign" something that occurred all the time, all over the place: "Hey, is that bent tree a 'sign tree' or is it 'natural'?" "I dunno, what do you think?" "I dunno."

Far quicker and more reliable to use an ax to create notches or blazes, or to tack skins to trees. Nature doesn't replicate those things.

But the Bent Tree afficionados disregard the scientific and historic record and continue to abide in the house built on the foundation of their original error that "bent trees must've been created by mankind." Instead of assuming the easy explanation (hey, they occur naturally all the time, so the odds are this one is natural), they do the opposite (hey, they occur naturally all the time, but let's assume this one is manmade even though there's no scientific reason to believe so and nothing in the historic record to suggest so).

Early last century, a man in Chicago wrote a letter to the editor about this. He noted that a historic marker had been placed by a bent tree commemorating American Indians forming it as a "trail tree." But he had been present when the tree was bent during a storm some 50 or 75 years previously. He knew it had been formed by natural causes. He called the notion that it had been formed by American Indians "a pretty conceit." Today's Bent Tree afficionados refer to his letter as "a well-known assertion by a naysayer, familiar to us all." They completely dismiss his firsthand account and continue to propound a theory contrary to science and the historical record. It is, after all, a pretty conceit.

[JeffroK]

Seeing so many have fled and crossed the ditch I thought you envied us.

Some of the flag options were excellent, problem in changes like that is that there must be 1 overpowering option, otherwise they dilute the vote.

Did you cop any of the Cyclone overflow, I'm headed there in 20 days (I can give the days/hours countdown)and regularly check my accomodation hasnt been shaken down or washed away.

[Canoerebel]

https://www.mountainstewards.org/projec ... index.html

That links is to the Mountain Stewards website where the organization asserts that "sharp angles" characterize mankind's touch.

[Canoerebel]

Their hypothesis is wrong (that sharp angles aren't natural) but they "intuitively" built a theory on that hypothesis.

[Canoerebel]

Mountain Stewards didn't like what this eyewitness had to offer on the subject, so they just disregard him.

[Canoerebel]

George Holt's 1911 refutation about a "trail tree" in Chicago.

[JeffroK]

"Could their placement on the mountain crests...."

You know, where the strongest winds blow through passes etc.

You can argue any point if you ignore the facts.

[Canoerebel]

5/9/45

Intel Screen: A modest gain in points today. The raid vs. Osaka was strong but the points scored weren't particularly impressive. Could be dice. But I also wonder: I'm pushing my 4EB hard to finish the game, and I wonder if damage to bombers affects pilot performance? I have no idea, but it's just something to think about. Tomorrow will continue will all-out raids vs. Osaka and Gifu.

Korea: Five IJN CAs bombarded Fusan today to modest effect. I'm not contesting these waters currently, as it seems like a real roll of the dice at this late date. Allied army is reinforced and will try a probing deliberate attack tomorrow. Just a bit to the north, 14 IJA Div. wiped out today, freeing up additional Allied units to push forward, north and south.

China: 2,000 Allied AV in Peiping. Three hexsides are open. About 4,000 AV will cross the river and assault from the SE in two days. The Allied units already in the city will deliberate attack at the same time.

Singers: John has alot of aircraft down here bombing, accomplishing essentially nothing, but perhaps giving him the satisfaction of the appearance of doing something.

KB: Out of sight at the moment. Part is in the DEI, most is in the Home Islands, available to Banzai if John gets a notion.

[Canoerebel]

5/10/45

Intel Screen: Allied score unexpectedly leaped a bit today. Unexpected because the main bombing raid vs. Osaka was scrubbed by weather (and it would've been interesting, because John used max CAP). But a modest raid vs. Gifu aircraft and engine factories scored very well.

Is this just a matter of dice or is there something about "new" targets that makes a hit more powerful? I suspect it's just the dice, but man, yesterday's huge raid vs. Osaka scored just 200 points and today's scored more than 700. You'll have to take my word for it that this was a disproportionate result.

I'll post a complete map in a bit. Today had an encouraging clash at Fusan and tomorrow features an all-out assault at Peiping. The latter, if wildly successful, could end the war. But the hardest choices will be where to send bombers and sweepers.

And unless John has a major change of heart, the war ends in one, two, or three days with KB and kamikazes languishing unused and John self-persuaded that such use was sensible.

[MakeeLearn]

I believe a bigger subject is being put on top of my original point. Encompassing it and steering it in a certain direction. Looking into Trail trees I see that there is large following of believing that a bent tree is a man made landmark tree. My point was concerning a more subtle use of of a tree sign and it's transition in folklore.

My original main point.

"A Cherokee, or any person of that time/place would alter a small tree, or it's branches to convey a "Sign" message, and if left in that position long enough it would grow into that position. And the sender or receiver would note it's altered growth over the years and tell it's tale. "


Landmark/trail trees are different from a sign tree and I was explaining how folklore could have happen.
I was trying to explain how a small tree used as sign could have been left in that position, the tale was told, passed as folklore so that those Landmark Trail mature trees now appear everywhere.

"The most important thing is to understand that bent trees are formed naturally and occur abundantly in the woods. I can go into the process if anybody wants to know it in detail but I think most of you who have an interest understand that bent trees are perfectly natural."

Well of course!!! That verges on being "Lawyer Grease", I've got all kinds of weird shape trees around me. Most natural, some I've done.

The majority of trees that exist today are skaggy pion trees compared to the trees that were here then. With multiple layers. Even in Rutherford's time, late 1700s, he tells of canopies of the same group of grape vines that covered over a mile.

To me a important point about longterm "Landmark Trail" trees, if made by the Indians it would been more than just a tree with a bend in it. It would have been a work of art... Medicine. That the Indians shaped trees for the long term I have no doubt, but just a bend?

"Then they ran into a historical record that is amazingly silent on the topic. Hundreds or maybe thousands of soldiers, explorers, government emissaries, mapmakers, surveyors, frontiersmen, hunters, adventurers, scientists, geologists, missionaries, and others trapsed the southeastern part of what is now the USA and left detailed diaries, letters, reports, etc. None referred to the practice of American Indians bending trees. For example, William Bartram traveled the southeast extensively in the 1770s and made notes about every little thing. But he didn't mention "trail trees"; he didn't mention the Cherokee or Creek or Seminole doing this kind of thing. Neither did Hawkins or Featherstonehaugh or scores/hundreds of others.
But Bartram noted all kinds of other ways the Cherokee marked trails - they nailed animals skins to trees, used hatchets to create blazes on trees, and cut notches into trees. In the historical records you'll find all kinds of references to "Two Notch Road" and "Three Notch Road" and "Five Notch Road" and so on and so on. But you'll find nothing about bent trees. "

Most of those people you listed would not know a "tactical sign" from a hole in the ground. They could not fully understand the Indians much less convey it to a reader. Like music to someone who has a tin ear. Many Indian Signs would have passed under the radar for the majority of them. They were whites looking into the Indian world. So what they see and then describe has a chance of being out of context. Like music theory to someone who has a tin ear. In all study of Indian history it's best to learn as much as possible and then to see through the eyes of a detective.
If it is written "They looked for Indian sign..." it does not always mean just footprints and litter.
The Indians hung all kinds of things in trees, they decorated their world and each different meaning. Not every sign would have been for mass consumption. Nor would they want it easily seen. Not every Indian Sign was a neon sign.

I spent 2 years learning the art of the ambush in the tropics and Ive spent decades in the woods. I've tracked a bear by prints and signs for 2 years off and on until I found it. I can smell deer and snakes when the conditions are right. Ive learned the sounds of the animals around me and what they may be indicating. Once as we made our way Indian file through the jungle I noticed a elephant ear plant and one ear was hanging a little closer to the stalk than the others. "NEST" whispered in my head and as I creeped by I looked at the backside of the lower hanging leaf and there was a fist size bee nest. A awesome feeling - one with my surroundings.

All that, and having Creek blood, Point is... I see how the Indian world would have been on a different thinking plane than most white people in that era, except for those whites that had become as Indians. So expecting whites to correctly and completely comprehend and write about the Indians world of that time is a unrealistic expectation.


Have you read every account?

1770s is late.
Not reading the unabridged accounts of the DeSoto expedition is to build a house on sand, no matter how many or what other works are read no full understanding can be had without it.
Garcilaso de la Vega gives the best and first account of southeastern Indians.

I don't have access to the books I use to. At one time, having no AC in Alabama I lived in the Library Reference section and off shelf book room of the library and had access to many older books.

Some I can remember

-The original Desoto accounts. Symmetrical forests, trees shaped into the fortress walls of towns. Wood carvings in cut and living wood. And other use of Signs. The SCRIPTURE .
-Works and tales of Simon Kenton. Signs tree/rocks/etc use.
-Rutherford Survey Expedition. There is the landmark tree and maybe some other signs. He tells of Indian spirits they encountered.
-Works by the writer of the New Testament on Indian history - John Swanton(1920s). Lots of detail as he pulls from older writings and some first hand accounts of tribal history.

And two other books. Ive got stuff in boxes due to construction right now. Large compilation works:
~ "History of the Southeastern Indians"
~ "History and Culture of the Cherokee"

For those that don't know, as shown by the ~ sign Iam unsure of the exact titles. The second contains a lot of stuff that is the first, it was a gift to me from one of my group when I was a walk leader at a fitness spa.

"And why would Native Americans used bent trees when they occurred so naturally and abundantly? There'd be nothing more potentially confusing and misleading than to use as a "sign" something that occurred all the time, all over the place: "Hey, is that bent tree a 'sign tree' or is it 'natural'?" "I dunno, what do you think?" "I dunno." Far quicker and more reliable to use an ax to create notches or blazes, or to tack skins to trees. Nature doesn't replicate those things.But the Bent Tree afficionados disregard the scientific and historic record and continue to abide in the house built on the foundation of their original error that "bent trees must've been created by mankind." Instead of assuming the easy explanation (hey, they occur naturally all the time, so the odds are this one is natural), they do the opposite (hey, they occur naturally all the time, but let's assume this one is manmade even though there's no scientific reason to believe so and nothing in the historic record to suggest so)."

That's the point. Do you want a big Neon sign for every thing... "This way" or "I saw so and so in this area". Trade Paths, Peace Paths and War Paths... those are actual paths, some times you want the sign to be as discrete as possible.... noticeable only to those who know them. Reading Sign was only half, you had to find the sign.

"Early last century, a man in Chicago wrote a letter to the editor about this. He noted that a historic marker had been placed by a bent tree commemorating American Indians forming it as a "trail tree." But he had been present when the tree was bent during a storm some 50 or 75 years previously. He knew it had been formed by natural causes. He called the notion that it had been formed by American Indians "a pretty conceit." Today's Bent Tree afficionados refer to his letter as "a well-known assertion by a naysayer, familiar to us all." They completely dismiss his firsthand account and continue to propound a theory contrary to science and the historical record. It is, after all, a pretty conceit."

To get back to bent Trail trees which was not the focus of my original point but is still interesting:

And that man was George H. Holt and though he admits to seeing the bent in the tree being naturally formed, that is not his best argument.

His statement that: "Any Indian who was so ignorant of woodcraft as to conceive of marking a trail by bending over a limb and fastening it to the ground in the manner indicated in this tablet, would have been the laughing stock of every other Indian." ... carries more weight in his protest of a simple bent tree.

And "George H. Holt was the only person to voice an opinion against the trail market tree research. He was in the lumber business, so he may have had other reasons for not wanting trees identified as historic trail marker trees."


And there is Valentine Smith's rebuttal to Holt.

"Trail Tree" Tablet. Chicago, Nov 15.
To the Editor: As chairman of the committee of the Chicago Daughters of the American Revolution which erected this bronze table, I have decided to reply to the criticisms of George H. Holt.

Mr. Holt stands alone in his contentions. I think he must have mistaken the tree, because his memory would be almost superhuman if he ever saw the pointing branch of that tree stand upright. We have not acted without consulting authorities. Frank R. Grover, vice president of the Evanston Historical Society, read a paper on Indian trail marks before the Chicago Historical Society on Feb. 21, 1905. His paper can be found on pages 267-8 of the publication of that society. He said that at various points along the north shore, following the old Indian trails, trees were still to be found which had evidently been bent and tied down with saplings to mark the Indian trails. The trees, he said, were invariably large, which indicated that they had been bent something over a century ago. One of the trees he mentioned was selected by the committee to support the tablet.

The "pointing branch' of this tree was not broken, but bent. The fiber of the wood leaves no doubt of this fact. The same even curve to be observed in the fiber was to be discerned in the bark before relic hunters stripped it bare. A whirlwind would not have left the tree in this condition.

Mr. Holt is evidently unaware of the existence of three other trees along the same trail from Lakeside station south to Hubbard's woods. Each tree has its pointing branch and all are white elms. They are arranged so systematically that they tell their own story. Moreover, the use of "trail" trees so marked is not doubted by Jens Jensen, landscape architect and member of the outer park belt commission, City Forester Prost and other experts."

[MakeeLearn]

A simple "this way" ... "that way" Sign. Other markers could be added.
Signs would have been a SOP meaning, dependent on the group using them.

[MakeeLearn]

Three rocks and a bent tree. "Go that way" "I went that way" or as the way tree wants to "Go the way opposite that the tree points. Or "Hide" as the tree is doing.
Meanings would be assign by those using the signs. Of course trees would be used in every sign.


I bent the tree under the other. The 3 rocks are the key marker of the Sign.



Anyone know what those clumps of green sprouts, left and right of rocks, are? They are...

[MakeeLearn]

Multiple Markers in this Sign. 3rocks, single rock, bent tree, fell wood.
Again, meanings would be assign by those using the signs.

[MakeeLearn]

Any long term shaped trees done by the Indians would have have been along these works, combined with carvings and short term ornaments.

[dave sindel]

This sort of back and forth exchange is one of the things I will miss most when this AAR concludes - the "other" subjects that get touched upon outside of WITPAE. I learned more about "sign" this morning reading these posts than I could ever have imagined. Whichever side of the subject you find yourself on - "natural" or "man-made", the subject itself is very interesting.

[MakeeLearn]

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn







When walking in the woods if one smells 3day old bacon grease, what thoughts?

[/quote]


No one knows?

[JohnDillworth]

I'll cross post what I posed in John's AAR. He was wandering about all the activity here:
"Talk about forestry and trees? Happens all the time. Honestly every time time he goes on a long hike the entire AAR degenerates into "This Week in Horticulture". Odd thing is many of the readers of the ARR seem to have strong opinions about such stuff. Present company included. Frankly you might try a bit of "Maskirovka" yourself and start talking about steam trains every time you want to gin up your numbers and make Dan think something big is coming.
"

[MakeeLearn]

ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth

I'll cross post what I posed in John's AAR. He was wandering about all the activity here:
"Talk about forestry and trees? Happens all the time. Honestly every time time he goes on a long hike the entire AAR degenerates into "This Week in Horticulture". Odd thing is many of the readers of the ARR seem to have strong opinions about such stuff. Present company included. Frankly you might try a bit of "Maskirovka" yourself and start talking about steam trains every time you want to gin up your numbers and make Dan think something big is coming.
"

So J3 is into trains. That's a very interesting subject. He should.