people probably didn't even want to drive between your legs, they just can't see you because you are invisible. you didn't need to eat their brains through the palm of your massive hand about that.
stream of consciousness screaming past trees that grow rocks, the existence of Ethiopians, and a big ass 300 foot long couch. i am like whoa whoa whoa you care to elaborate on literally anything about them
this book ends like a #monsterdon movie -- they just drop this and then go on to transcribe the bible for a few pages for some reason. like.. OK!? do they need help!? or what is going on with theM!?!?!?
but then i remembered that there WERE A BUNCH OF HOOLIGAN MONSTER GUYS ALL OVER THE WORLD and they are called ANIMALS and they all do WAY WEIRDER SHIT than all of that.
@jonny@jonny On top of including black Ethiopians in a bestiary of humanoids, apparently there's another kind of black people, which is doubly unusual to the author. But of course this view makes sense when the Anglo-Saxons and their kind are the true humans.
@liohong
Its true that the author is definitely someone we would call a racist today. To be fair to them it isnt entirely a bestiary, there are lots of other parts where they are also describing the humans of other areas they've never been to, and it seems like their attitude is "all of these are people" rather than "only we are people and everyone else is a monster," which is super interesting to me bc I also initially read it with that assumption.
Like they didnt have any sense of boundaries around the concept of "human" vs "nonhuman," and out there in all the other places weve never been there are lots of weird kinds of guys, so while theres definitely a "we are normal and they are weird," that seems to be different than "and therefore they are bad and not the same thing as me."
But yeah youre not wrong that all these medieval-ish manuscripts that posit a wild unknown are like "holy shit everywhere else is scary as fuck" and you can absolutely see how that would blend seamlessly into anglo racism
@liohong
Part of the scientific construction of racism includes the development of the concept of "species," and as you say excluding everyone that isnt white from the "human" species. This seems to precede that where different kinds of animals are of different types, but they are somewhat fluid types. I want to read more about the status of race and species in this era bc I dont know enough about it to say for sure
@NilaJones
I was waiting for prospecting fedi to weigh in. I just love the sense of analogy here: "I pulled something out of the water once, so why couldnt that something be gold?"
@jonny
The christian church had an interesting discussion in the middle ages about dog headed people, and they decided that they have a soul and should be evangelized if anyone finds them, which is nice of them.
They also have a dog-headed saint https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Christopher_icon.jpg
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