Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Acorn Eaters


Watched election news awhile...then Frontline about industrial hazardous workplaces...oh...Hawass and the Niagra mummy was on again...dont know what''s next...back to election news...oh...missed ncis...like that show...


But the Acorn Eaters...the ancients had a notion of the past as different ages...the Ages of Man...and if I remember right...the first age was the Acorn Eaters...brb...well...here's one version from Metamorphoses...


quote


Earth herself was untouched by hoes and free from the wounds of plowshares, but she gave forth crops of her own will. Men were happy to gather meals that grew without compulsion: tree strawberries, the mast of mountain beeches, dogwood berries, blackberries from their thorny thickets, and the acorns which fell from Jupiter's broad-spreading oak.


unquote


another one


quote


And happy mortals, unconcern'd for more,

Confin'd their wishes to their native shore.

No walls were yet; nor fence, nor mote, nor mound,

Nor drum was heard, nor trumpet's angry sound:

Nor swords were forg'd; but void of care and crime,

The soft creation slept away their time.

The teeming Earth, yet guiltless of the plough,

And unprovok'd, did fruitful stores allow:

Content with food, which Nature freely bred,

On wildings and on strawberries they fed; 140

Cornels and bramble-berries gave the rest,

And falling acorns furnish'd out a feast.

The flow'rs unsown, in fields and meadows reign'd:

And Western winds immortal spring maintain'd.

In following years, the bearded corn ensu'd

From Earth unask'd, nor was that Earth renew'd.

From veins of vallies, milk and nectar broke;

And honey sweating through the pores of oak.


unquote


Ovid's Golden Age...


And it must have been hereabout when the Indians gathered acorns...and that wasn't that long ago!...there's a grinding rock over at the Lower Falls...a popular place to clamber...


quote


Site CA-Mrp-240/303/H. Site CA-Mrp-240/303/H is located directly west of Yosemite Creek and north of Yosemite Lodge in the Lower Yosemite Fall area. Seven stationary milling features (large stones or bedrock used for the processing or milling of foods) with a total of 63 mortar cups and three milling slicks (smooth parts of a stone where grains were milled) have been recorded at Site CA-Mrp-240/303/H, while sparsely scattered obsidian tools and debris are apparent on the surface and below the surface (Hull et al. 1998).


unquote


I think these are the boulders...and where the History Signs are...and which are controversial as there's is some question about the Miwoks and the Paiutes and just who all, Indians wise, lived in the Valley!


here's the nps page on the Backyard!...neat...




tomorrow..onward with the Ages of Man!...


DavidDavid

Tree in the Door

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