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Echoes of the Ice Age (Pre-History)
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Ishmael


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aurelius wrote:
So, I would suggest that this disgusting practise is more likely drawn indirectly, and relatively recently, from some low Western influence.


'Cause loading tens of thousands of pigeons onto container ships and releasing them in stormy seas, thousands of miles from land, is such a widespread, western practice.
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aurelius



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Obviously, one can race pigeons without taking them thousands of miles out to sea and releasing them in such a way as to guarantee that the vast majority of them will die. However, such practices have a clear benefit to people desperate to raise birds capable of saving human lives.

If you are lost at sea and need to find land, you want to know that the pigeons you have on board come from a long lineage of successful race winners, bred only with fellow survivors.


I'm sorry, I completely missed this aspect of the video. The link I responded with

http://www.silvio-co.com/pigeons/taiwan.htm

show a business which is only stresses the opportunity to race them successfully for prizes.
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aurelius



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If you read today's two extracts from the Unreliable History you will see where this can take you.


Those would be the felicific calculus ones would they Mick (unless you have added more since)?

I have a lot of reading to do here, and not enough time!
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Ishmael


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Horse Latitudes


While working on this Deserts Book project, I have many times encountered reference to something called the "Horse Latitudes." This label is an old, maritime name given to the range of latitudes between 30 and 38 degrees south. According to Wikipedia, the horse latitudes are associated with variable winds mixed with calm.
The belt in the Northern Hemisphere is sometimes called the "calms of Cancer" and that in the Southern Hemisphere the "calms of Capricorn".

A least two theories exist as to how the Horse Latitudes earned their moniker, both documented by Wikipedia.

A likely and documented explanation is that the term is derived from the "dead horse" ritual of seamen (see Beating a dead horse). In this practice, the seaman paraded a straw-stuffed effigy of a horse around the deck before throwing it overboard. Seamen were paid partly in advance before a long voyage, and they frequently spent their pay all at once, resulting in a period of time without income. If they got advances from the ship's paymaster, they would incur debt. This period was called the "dead horse" time, and it usually lasted a month or two. The seaman's ceremony was to celebrate having worked off the "dead horse" debt. As west-bound shipping from Europe usually reached the subtropics at about the time the "dead horse" was worked off, the latitude became associated with the ceremony

An alternative theory, of sufficient popularity to serve as an example of folk etymology, is that the term horse latitudes originates from when the Spanish transported horses by ship to their colonies in the West Indies and Americas. Ships often became becalmed in mid-ocean in this latitude, thus severely prolonging the voyage; the resulting water shortages made it impossible for the crew to keep the horses alive, and they would throw the dead or dying animals overboard.[2]
I think both these notions problematic and unsatisfying. The second case is rather literal and the first case could apply rationally only to the northern "Horse Latitude." There would be no sense in the southern hemisphere being given the same name except in echo of the first, after the origin of the label had been forgotten.

I have another idea. One that fits the chief characteristics of the Horse Latitudes and which would be of special significance to mariners---particularly ancient ones.

I remembered that Newfoundlanders have a particular habit of speech that could be relevant to solving the mystery. They both remove the "H" sound from the beginnings of words where general consensus places the consonant, and add the "H" sound to the beginning of words where no one else would place it. Thus "apple" becomes "h'apple" and "horse" becomes "'orse."

Orse.

Or "Oars."

The 'Oars Latitudes. The latitudes where sails become useless and the oars must be extended.

Neither Pinta, Nina nor Santa Maria had oars aboard.
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aurelius



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I have another idea. One that fits the chief characteristics of the Horse Latitudes and which would be of special significance to mariners---particularly ancient ones.


This is an innovative idea but there are others which still need to be dismissed rationally. For example in the old maritime terminology a ship was 'horsed' if it was being carried (like a bareback rider) on a strong current. In the becalmed latitudes you have discussed where sails become useless, finding strong currents would be the best way to make rapid progress. This is an even simpler explanation.

Also if we agree to reject the unmotivated-sailors-after-their-debts-were-cleared explanation (not least because it would not apply to the southern hemisphere), if the straw horse ceremony truly happened, why would that tradition exist? Could it be seen as an offering to the sea to provide a useful current?

I'm not sure how often Newfoundlanders would have crossed the southern belt?
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Ishmael


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Many people from England, Scotland and Ireland would pronounce "oars" with an "H" in the front of the word.
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Ishmael


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I will add that, if what you say is true, it must be the explanation for the "Horse Latitudes." Rather disappointing as it is not suggestive of anything of greater import.

However, I was unable to obtain any hits from google on the phrase "boat horsed by current." Can you find me an example of someone using this expression in print somewhere?
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aurelius



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Ishmael wrote:
I will add that, if what you say is true, it must be the explanation for the "Horse Latitudes." Rather disappointing as it is not suggestive of anything of greater import.

However, I was unable to obtain any hits from google on the phrase "boat horsed by current." Can you find me an example of someone using this expression in print somewhere?


Hi Ishmael, this is where I got it from - the 'third explanation', second paragraph below the ship image:

http://justalittlefurther.com/sailing/the-blue-view-horse-latitudes/

Not sure about their own source but I did read it somewhere else as well.
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Ishmael


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Well that is confirmation that someone else believes the same theory you believe but, it's still not confirmation that any mariner ever actually used the phrase.

Still. Had a read this on Wikipedia I would never have thought there to be any mystery. Why hasn't Wikipedia given official sanction to the this hypothesis? It seems the most rational, if it is an accurate report of the usage of the phrase.

Here's an idea. Go try adding this explanation to Wikipedia giving this Web site as your source. See what the gods of Wikipedia have to say about it.
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Chad


In: Ramsbottom
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I’ve seen the term used to describe ships "horsed around" in high tides… which seems an apt metaphor (but somewhat inappropriate if applied to a ship becalmed in the subtropical highs).
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Ishmael


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But "horsed around" is a reference to boyish tom-foolery. What came first?

There's not a single google hit for anything nautical related to the phrase.
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Chad


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Horsed ship
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Ishmael


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The day ended with stiff breezes and a very strong tide that horsed the ship about.
This expression again seems akin to "horseplay" and is the very opposite of what one imagines to occur at the Horse Latitudes. In this instance, it was not currents at all that "horsed" the ship. It's stiff breezes and swells. Again I emphasize---the complete opposite of what occurs at the Horse Latitudes.

Problem is there's enough here to just about ruin my case. Other problem is, there's no example of this "horsing about" that has the slightest thing to do with the character of the Horse Latitudes.

You've succeeded in sowing sufficient doubt for me to abandon the argument but have not provided one instance of the phrase being used to refer to slow currents moving a ship through a windless sea. Every instance of this "horsing about" phrase of which I am aware implies some violent, frolicking motion. Tell me how that could possibly relate with specificity to the Horse Latitudes.

All the same, great work finding this. Pisses me off my argument is now shit.
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aurelius



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For those still interested, try Googling horsed/currents/ship and an e-copy of the India Directory (circa 1803?) comes up...there is the passage under the heading Fernando Noronha,

"has not unfrequently been visited or seen by ships bound to India, occasioned by the currents having horsed them to the westward after the failure of the North-East trade..."

So here it is clear the phrase is referring to the currents rather than the (lack of) wind.

Not much to do with Echoes of the Ice Age though....
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Chad


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Pisses me off my argument is now shit.

I don't believe that it is.

Horse=oars fits much better than "horsed about" in this particular situation, where ships find themselves becalmed at these latitudes.
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