What’s really wild is that the native people literally told the Europeans “they walked” when asked how the statues were moved. The Europeans were like “lol these backwards heathens and their fairy tales guess it’s gonna always be a mystery!”
Maori told Europeans that kiore were native rats and no one believed them until DNA tests proved it
Roopkund Lake AKA “Skeleton Lake” in the Himalayas in India is eerie because it was discovered with hundreds of skeletal remains and for the life of them researchers couldn’t figure out what it was that killed them. For decades the “mystery” went unsolved.
Until they finally payed closer attention to local songs and legend that all essentially said “Yah the Goddess Nanda Devi got mad and sent huge heave stones down to kill them”. That was consistent with huge contusions found all on their neck and shoulders and the weather patterns of the area, which are prone to huge & inevitably deadly goddamn hailstones. https://www.facebook.com/atlasobscura/videos/10154065247212728/
Literally these legends were past down for over a thousand years and it still took researched 50 to “figure out” the “mystery”. 🙄
Adding to this, the Inuit communities in Nunavut KNEW where both the wrecks of the HMS Erebus and HMS Terror were literally the entire time but Europeans/white people didn’t even bother consulting them about either ship until like…last year.
“Inuit traditional knowledge was critical to the discovery of both ships, she pointed out, offering the Canadian government a powerful demonstration of what can be achieved when Inuit voices are included in the process.
In contrast, the tragic fate of the 129 men on the Franklin expedition hints at the high cost of marginalising those who best know the area and its history.
“If Inuit had been consulted 200 years ago and asked for their traditional knowledge – this is our backyard – those two wrecks would have been found, lives would have been saved. I’m confident of that,” she said. “But they believed their civilization was superior and that was their undoing.”
“Oh yeah, I heard a lot of stories about Terror, the ships, but I guess Parks Canada don’t listen to people,” Kogvik said. “They just ignore Inuit stories about the Terror ship.”
Schimnowski said the crew had also heard stories about people on the land seeing the silhouette of a masted ship at sunset.
“The community knew about this for many, many years. It’s hard for people to stop and actually listen … especially people from the South.”
Indigenous Australians have had stories about giant kangaroos and wombats for thousands of years, and European settlers just kinda assumed they were myths. Cut to more recently when evidence of megafauna was discovered, giant versions of Australian animals that died out 41 000 years ago.
Similarly, scientists have been stumped about how native Palm trees got to a valley in the middle of Australia, and it wasn’t until a few years ago that someone did DNA testing and concluded that seeds had been carried there from the north around 30 000 years ago… aaand someone pointed out that Indigenous people have had stories about gods from the north carrying the seeds to a valley in the central desert.
it’s literally the oldest accurate oral history of the world.
Now consider this: most people consider the start of recorded history to be with the Sumerians and the Early Dynastic period of the Egyptians. So around 3500 BCE, or five and a half thousand years ago
These highly accurate Aboriginal oral histories originate from twenty thousand years ago at least
Imagine Yuuri and Victor enjoying their day when suddenly Victor gets a phone call. The person on the phone states that Yuri and his grandfather had been in a car accident and that his number was one of two that were to be contacted in case of emergency. Victor and Yuuri rush down to the hospital where upon arrival they see a similarly upset Yakov and Lilia. They are all brought to the room where they see a pissed off Yuri sitting on a hospital bed with his grandfather in the guest chair next to him. Yuri is slurring his words while cussing out the “dumb fucker” (Yuri’s words) who hit them. Victor swings a confused look over to his grandfather who smiles and says “It’s a concussion but the doctor doesn’t think it’s going to be a problem after a couple days.” That’s When Yuri looks over and spots Yuuri and says “I don’t feel good you should hug me.” He waves his arms and everything. Yuuri just smiles and tucks him in to his arms while Victor whips out his phone to record the whole thing. When fully recovered, Yuri is embarrassed that Victor and Yakov have discovered how much they mean to him.
It’s literally supposed to attract attention and yet somehow the groups that were doing months if not YEARS of research didn’t find it? Or didn’t even investigate??
I love that chapter to bits, but this is definitely a weird thing to think about :x
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