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Wednesday, May 24, 2006
15:49 
The one thing about Core I still regret
 Message left in the Nascakiyetl guestbook:
You guys totally sound like a cult. You are using Athabascan names and ideas to indoctrinate the unwary into your scheme. This is shameful. "Goo tr'igwaanduu nikhwatanoo'ee shro'". Stick to your Dungeons & Dragons fantasies and leave a beleaguered people be. It's bad enough the Christians have been working on assimilating us and extinguishing our culture and language for centuries, now you nut jobs want to scavenge the the last remnants of a beautiful way of life.
Now I've been wanting to take that section down for years. I never liked using the term Nascakiyetl - but fuck. I was Core. You do as you're told, no ifs or buts or maybes. And if Raven wants to be called by one name or another, who are we to argue? We even explained as much in the disclaimer. At no point did we ever claim to be following a Native American way of life or espousing Native American practise. I have done my fair share of arguing against cultural misappropriation from both sides of the pond. I don't care whether it's an accountant from Birmingham claiming to be a shaman and going by the name Rainbow Eagle at weekends, or some fat forty year old American housewife claiming to be a direct descendent of a Celtic Famtrad and a Priestess of PectiWicca. It's Just Rude.
But, on the other hand, I also detest this monopolising people insist on doing. The gods aren't bound by our tribal or cultural borders. Family doesn't give a flying fuck whether you are black, white, yellow, furry or green. They don't care if you speak English, French, Tlingit or pheromones. Human beings like things to be carefully delimited and territorial and we should respect the human side of that. Cultural misappropriation is cultural, by definition. If you think a culture owns their gods then you're looking at things through the opposite side of the glass from me.
I do regret the use of that terminology. But I won't apologise for it because if that's what my Old Man wants me to call him then I will do. Given that half the reason the site was there was as a point of contact then I was half expecting those contacting us to need that term up as proof that we were the right ones. We were the ones they were supposed to come to. It's not like we're the only site on the internet talking about weird-ass entities in animal form. For all I knew the reason we were told to do that was because the people we were supposed to help had been told to look for that term.
I think it is time that site was removed from public view. If people really do need to find us then they will. One way or another Family will make it possible for them. I'm not Core any more. I look at that material now and while it's not wrong, it's not false, it's not a lie: it's not relevant any more. It's only there to give a handhold for those rare folks out there who need a thing of resonance to convince them to make that first, nervous step towards contact.
I sent this reply:
Dear Mr Hayton.
Thank you for your input to the Guestbook at the Ravenfamily site.
No, we are not a cult.
We do not indoctrinate anyone.
Those who do come to us are invariably turned away.
The only Athabascan term we have ever used is "Nascakiyetl" and if any of the ideas detailed on that particular section of the website echo any of those from the indigenous tribes it is not deliberate on our part. In fact we have an entire page up detailing why we use that one term and that one term only. If I had my way we wouldn't use it at all, and I have been requesting permission from my Family to take down that entire section of the website for several years.
If you think that the Athabascan peoples have a monopoly on the idea of Raven the creator or Raven the Trickster then you in turn should be ashamed of yourself. The First Peoples do not own Raven. He is not yours. He follows his own mind.
For the use of that one term you have my regrets but not my apologies. That's something you can take up with Raven. As for the rest of your message - it seems that intolerance, arrogance and a tendency to jump to conclusions and make false accusations is not something limited to Western culture.
But then we are all human beings, aren't we?
I wish you well with your Initiative for Community Engagement.
Yours, Sam (Ravenfamily dogsbody)
Edit: I got a response from Mr Hayton.
I hate these accusations. I feel so strongly about cultural misappropriation that accusations of this nature stress me out to the point of feeling physically sick. Nowhere on this site is anything that claims to be Athabascan practise. In fact, we are quite clear that it is not. But, at the end of the day, if your native tongue lacks a piece of terminology and another tongue has that terminology, are you going to invent a new word or borrow from the other language? English is a polyglot — our language has everything in it from French to Saxon to Latin and Greek.
Sam,
Dotson' Sa is a Koyukon Athabascan name for Raven. I noticed several other Native language names for Raven. Thanks for Googling me, that's how I came across your very interesting site. I read your page on "Why we use the name Nascakiyetl", and I am not impressed. If you have to qualify a statement before you make it, then the statement is not true. Shoozhri' t'ee Diiton Vashraii K'oo Neets'aii ihLii (I am Neets'aii from Arctic Village, Alaska) and that is a true statement, no qualifications needed. I am Gwich'in and Koyukon Athanbascan, I am not of "Native American extraction", whatever that means. I am also Scottish and Irish. "We are
Tools, after all."...that is a direct quote from your site and I think it couldn't be more true, you are a bunch of Tools. Wishing you and your "Family" "all the best". ~Allan
Is there an Athabascan word for skidoo or is that a borrow word?
And to come out with all these accusations of cultural misappropriation and then to follow it up with "I'm Scottish" — well. I suppose that just shows that we should look in our own backyards before accusing others.
I have responded. I have observed the hypocrisy in writing the words "all the best" when they are evidently not meant. Should Mr Hayton reply I shall respond in the Doric and find out how Scottish he is.
Ever had a deep fried Mars Bar, Mr Hayton? Know what Irn Bru tastes like? Rolled Easter eggs down Falkland Hill? Understand why everyone thought Mel Gibson was 'braw' even though he's Australian? Comprehend how disgusted we are at Holyrood? Share the traditional Scottish enthusiasm for supporting a team, any team, as long as they are playing against England?
That site is still being mothballed. But why should I get upset over someone claming a monopoly on a non-consensus entity who is far bigger than either of us, and accusing us of misappropriation for the use of borrow words, when that someone then goes on to claim he's Scottish despite emailing me about our supposed theft of his Athabascan culture?
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Monday, May 22, 2006
19:43
Yes, I usually do dream in this amount of detail
 So I found myself at a boarding school. Old colonial style - massive. Think Hogwarts on steroids. Uniforms, strict discipline, manners, boys and girls segregated. Attended by royalty.
Five of us had been called in for works project in the grounds. Two men, two women and me. Engineering project of some description, although I didn't know what it was when we arrived.
The two men were both Family. They were older — late 50s, early 60s. One looked like Whistler from Blade. The other one was the bastard offspring of Charles Bronson and Lee Majors. Both gave the impression that their skills came from years of experience rather than training.
The two women were not Family. One had thick, almost coarse, tawny blonde hair and blue eyes. She was very attractive in a magazine-smooth surf girl way. The other was darker, a light brunette. Very shiny and sleek. Slightly older and squarer of face.
Spent a while chatting to the guys on the trip out. They were asking about how things had been getting on since the move and we talked about whether I was going to stay in Scotland. I replied probably not. They seemed to know me: it felt like we'd known each other for a long time. Not especially well, though — more like they were friends of my parents who knew me through them and had met me a few times; they knew me but not very well.
The two women didn't really chat to the guys at all; nor me. No friendly banter from them. There was a gap, as if they considered themselves officers and we were just grunts. I got the impression they were more bookwork than legwork. They considered themselves better than us because they had studied, but if I'd had a problem I needed help with I'd have gone to the guys.
We had to introduce ourselves to the school board. Very formal, felt like a royal audience; which, indeed, it was. There was a young prince attending the school, maybe 8 or 10 years of age, and his father was there along with the headmaster and a couple of the teachers who were acting like courtiers. They were obvious in not outranking the royal, but taking control of the situation. I got the sense that they did not consider the royal especially bright and thought that they had him under control, almost a puppet, but he was much brighter than he let on and was playing along.
I was distracted by analyzing the teachers so I missed what everyone else said when they introduced themselves. I described myself as an engineer and got filthy looks from the two women, who had apparently been expecting me to describe myself as an apprentice and were upset because I was making myself out to be better skilled than I really was. The two guys laughed like drains. I shrugged it off. I have plenty of training and experience in engineering and mechanics, and it wasn't like I was in a position to say what I was really there for.
The school board told us what they wanted, indicating the area concerned by pointing out of the (very high) window. They wanted some landscape improvements and needed an area of the grounds drained. The soil was very strange, like a cross between liquid rubber and set custard. It was smooth, black, glossy and gelatinous in a starchy way rather than a jelly way. I would almost have said it was fine clay mixed with crude. It seemed to absorb water well enough. They couldn't use it like that because it was a mire. It could not take weight. If it was dried out it would harden and be usable.
There was some discussion about the finer details. Then there was a friendly, informal chat over coffee, during which I had a word with the slightly older women (Laura?) about not making a big song and dance about me not being an engineer. I didn't appreciate it, it was disrespectful, and it would not make the job we were there to do any easier. She was quite good about it and accepted what I was saying even if she didn't much care for the way I was saying it.
Once coffee was done we headed out to look at the site more closely. As I was leaving I noted a few of the boy pupils looking at me the way the aliens looked at humans in Invasion of the Bodysnatchers. It was as if they could sense I wasn't quite who I claimed to be but had no evidence so I was fine as long as I acted confidently.
That was when I saw a small creature: it was the size of a very large cat (Maine Coon sized), a bit smaller than a Labrador retriever. It was tan brown in colour and hairless, with large, round, red eyes in a relatively small head. Its limbs were spindly — it almost looked malnourished — and it moved on all fours even though it had definite arms and legs. The limbs splayed out like a spider's. It was naked, with no tail. Think somewhere between Gollum and that irritating thing from the Lost In Space remake.
As soon as I saw it I knew it was important. It scanned like any other of the inhabitants, including the kids. Especially the kids. It did not scan like a separate species but more like one of them gone wrong. A glitch. It should have been like them but wasn't.
I was about to go after it when the blonde asked me to come talk to her. She was a bit cross.
Reluctantly I went over.
"Why? I haven't done anything wrong."
"There is a chain of command. I am in charge here. I did not appreciate that you spoke to Dr Lawrence. If you have something to say — some criticism or complaint — you come to me."
"I didn't realize you were in charge. I thought she was." This was true. I had not been interested in their team structure to that level of detail.
The woman was not amused. She had said she was the leader when the introductions were made, as I'd have known had I been paying attention instead of pretending to be an engineer. She was really rather miffed.
I didn't much care and I had to get after the creature. Inside its head was a memory and I needed to know more. The memory was of being in the headmistress's study, the room we had just left, with three women including the headmistress. There had also been a little blonde girl there: very pale, almost Aryan. One of the women had café-au-lait skin and blonde-bronze hair, a colour that tasted to me of caramel. She had examined the little girl's stomach: there was no navel. Only a tiny blemish. The creature also lacked a navel, although it did not possess even a blemish.
The woman was the girl's mother, and they were all vampires. No navel because no umbilicus. They didn't nourish the gestating child that way. There was a jumble of second-hand impressions the creature had evidently recorded from the women passively without understanding what they meant. I was left with the idea that in this species the womb filled with blood and the fœtus ingested it, first taking what nutrients it needed through incompletely formed skin, and drinking it when further developed. These things came out having fed on blood throughout gestation.
The little girl was the creature's twin sister. Something had gone wrong in pregnancy, as evidenced by the creature's mutation and the girl's blemish. The women had met to discuss them.
The girl was acceptable. The tiny blemish was not considered to be a problem. If it had been, if it had been bad enough to be a sign of a communicable congenital defect, they would have killed her. The creature was considered to be too simple to be a threat, and no one would ever be able to breed with it so it was permitted to live. These things sometimes happened. There was no shame in it for the mother. It was just one of those things.
I could sense no science in this. It was a mish-mash of fable and tradition, although the way it was comprehended by the women felt like science, just as some of the weird earth energy stuff we get from New Age types is presented as science. The creature had just passively recorded. It didn't have any understanding one way or the other.
At least it didn't have any obvious understanding. There was a glint there, a glimmer of something either dormant or incredibly well hidden.
I had to get after it.
"I'm sorry, Dr Boss Lady," I said with just a hint of sarcasm. She did not really understand who and what I was. She resented me being there. She considered it a slight. She thought she was more capable than me — she had all the training. She knew the best people. If I had been any good she would have heard of me. She would have read something written by me or met me at a conference. It was as if she were a published scientist and I a lowly lab technician. She valued scholarship more than hands-on ability.
"That's Dr Wallace," she said quietly.
"I'm sorry Dr Wallace," I said. I wasn't sarcastic that time, which surprised her. She didn't know I had to go and I didn't have time to get into a slanging match.
As I turned away from her I muttered "Bitch!" to myself and caught her doing the same out of the corner of my (right) eye.
She followed me outside as I went after the creature, which I don't think she had seen. I think she was heading that way anyway.
There was a huge, paved courtyard and the buildings of the school surrounded it on three sides. On the fourth side it was open, and the courtyard gave way to a steep, slippery slope of dense, smooth mud. The creature was about a hundred yards ahead and was moving quickly down the slope. Its size and build meant it negotiated the steep slope easily but I was losing my grip and starting to slide.
I went down on all fours, pushing a shift, initially reconfiguring into a similar form to the creature's basic layout; flattening out and spreading my limbs. But then something told me that it was not a good idea to let Wallace see that and it was a hard form to hit anyway, so I let myself slide into a standard wolf shape. I could feel my claws digging into the mud, leaving footprints, and the air in my fur.
As I loped down the slope the creature moved up to skitter along the wall, having just reached the point where it was out of line of sight of anyone in either the courtyard or looking from even the highest windows. Behind me I sensed that Wallace had not realised that I was a shifter, and now thought I was a werewolf; and I had the distinct impression that she might tell the school authorities of this, as if I were a spy. It seemed that she did not know my real purpose there. She had thought I was there for something else. She did not like having a lycanthrope on her team.
I didn't really much care if she told them I was a werewolf. It would make things harder but it would be fine as long as they didn't find out what I really was.
The alarm went off at this point and woke me. I spent some time trying to get back, but when I did it was later on and I got stuck helping to cut long trenches coming off the area of ground to be landscaped. One trench ran along the edge of it and the others came off that one like fingers. The soil cut like set custard. It was such a strange texture it peeled away, curling up over the spade until it fractured amorphously.
It was hard work. I was completely cream crackered when I got up about an hour later.
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10:27
Be careful what you eat
 As some of you know I'm on a diet. This isn't a lose weight for summer or fit into a bikini diet. It's part of the management protocol I use for remaining not a cripple — that psychiatrist might have thought my recovery was her doing, but we all know better, don't we boys and girls?
I got a lot of help from the Peanut Gallery in learning how to cope with lupus (for which read: getting on with my life post-Core). Not just advice, but the insistent prodding to get up and get on with it in the first place. I don't think I could have done it without that gang of non-consensus, insubstantial, coercive screwballs who share — who own — my life. I get everything from them. Exercise plans, dietary advice; even instructions on which supplements to take.
Some of it I've resisted. It took several years between them first bringing up the idea of the Hay diet, which Ranulph Fiennes swears by, and me giving in and agreeing to give it a go. I've been on it for a number of years and I wouldn't go back. It won't make you thin, but it has been responsible for evening out my energy levels and improving my digestion. I've always had trouble with digesting food. I like food. I don't like eating. The actual eating part has never been particularly pleasant for me.
Now they're dropping heavy hints about incorporating certain aspects of the GI diet in with it. After all, they observe, it's not that different from the Hay diet. I'd just need to move a few things from my B list into my A list.
Having benefited from their advice before, it's hard to resist the suggestion, especially as I'm not sure whether they'll eventually make it an imperative, like they did with the Hay. For the non-Gimps out there: dietary imperatives suck chunks. They boil down to: "Eat this way or be sick."
Sometimes that's quite literal. I've physically vomited before now because I've broken the rules.
Luckily my Bods are not entirely lacking in understanding, so I have a get-out called Scavenge Rules. These apply if I'm starving and faced with limited options despite my best efforts, or if keeping to the diet rules would conflict with a set of rules that take priority — hospitality, for instance.
I have issues with the GI diet. For one, I'm not entirely convinced I want to have a glycogen-starved liver. I do a lot of physical training. I suspect having glycogen in my liver is a good thing. For two, the timing between meals is even more ridiculous than the Hay diet, and that's hard enough to manage. For three, it bans a lot of things I like. Beer, for instance, and mangoes and bananas. Sugar with coffee in it is also Right Out. Four, I don't like the way it is iffy about fruit, as if there is anything that could be wrong with fruit.
Fundamentally, however, I've been put off by the book I read. It's the first book I've ever seen that contains a flow chart on how to read a book. The humour is off-putting. The guy is a fanatic. He evangelises, and claims it's the universal panacea. That makes me suspicious.
Oh. And it's the only book I've ever read that uses the aquatic ape theory as an argument against vegetarianism.
Seriously. It says that we moved out of the jungle to the sea and as plant matter was harder to come by we ate shellfish and sea food and gradually lost the ability to build protein out of plant material. It points at our 'webbed fingers and toes' and how we don't have hair.
Don't know about you but my fingers and toes aren't especially webbed. And I have hair.
However, as the PG doesn't seem to think that a shit book is a good enough reason not to do what they say, I suspect I'm going to be persuaded/cajoled/wheedled and finally pushed into giving this a go. At the very least I'm going to sit down and see what changes I would have to make to put it into practice.
Cheese weasels.
Still. As I'm currently living with my Mum, who finds the Hay diet hard enough to comprehend, I think I'll get away with it for a while yet.
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