VincentDarlage said:
PrinceYyrkoon said:
This seems to suggest that they looked like American Indians, a patent absurdity.
I notice you haven't offered any quotes to show any cultural proof they belong to anything other than an American Indian analogy, beyond having white skin.
Black Stranger was written originally as a Conan tale.
I did what you asked - and you discount the tale. Interesting.
Beyond the Black River: "I kept hearing drums talking across the river." Talking drums are American Indian and African, not historical Pictish.
The whole atmosphere of the stories, from the names to the descriptions of the land, draws comparisons to American Indians and the settling of America. In
Beyond the Black River, the settlers are described almost like Daniel Boone! Also in Wolves Beyond the Border ("clad in buckskin hunting shirt and fringed leggins and moccasins...")
I was referring to the terrain, btw. "We have dim rumours of great swamps and rivers, and a forest that stretches on and on over everlasting plains and hills to end at last on the shores of the western ocean. But what things lie between this river and that ocean we dare not even guess. No white man has ever plunged deep into that fastness and returned alive to tell us what he found." (Beyond the Black River). Sounds like the New World to me...
Sounds like the New World? Sounds like my garden.
The Black Stranger, yes, originally written as a Conan story, a minor little aberration which you provide as evidence. I understand your wish to transpose some part of American culture onto the Hyborian Kingdoms, it probably has something to do with the fact that you have invested time and effort in that direction, I understand. You will use letters, minor stories, drafts of stories, and suggest that I need to prove that Picts arent American Indians.
I will state, once again, the Picts of Howards invention are, primarily, based upon a historical race of the same name, with a sheen of various invented detail, some may even have been of American Indian in origin, maybe a few names here and there. They are described, however, clearly, as being white, as being devolved from a civilised race, as being something less than Cimmerian. They are mentioned in his other work, Kull, for example, as being decended from this race. This is from one of Howards major stories. I get the 'frontier' feel, the idea of an untamed wilderness on civilizations doorstep, etc., etc., and its similarity to the frontier feel of the Wild West. I too, understand that Howard understood, and likened the situation to a history close to his experience.
That, absolutely, does not, in any way, indicate that what we are looking at is a kind of misplaced Indian tribe. You have conceeded that the Picts of Howards invention are, inspired by history, as far as a spectator from the 30s would have understood. That they occupy a similar place in the world of Conan, as did their historical counterparts, that they were a race of white men and that they are called Picts. 'Colour', as in detail, may be added as appropriate, I dont care, whatever gets Howard through the story. If it quacks, its a duck.
I would suggest that Howard could have written about Conan meeting Amerind tribes, but he would have placed those stories, sensibly, in his version of the Americas.
I undertand, again, I will state, that Howard used a little bit of creative licence. His Picts, sometimes, in some of his stories, arent, exactly, 100% accurate and faithful to the evidence. It is a long stretch from that, however, to say that he intended the Picts to be fantasy versions of American Indians, lock, stock and barrel, regardless of the careful way he constructed his pseudo histories, his geography, his cultures. To do so, would destroy any kind of sense that the Hyborian Age has.
As I say, I will conceed a certain amount of colour has been added, that certain details in some stories arent exactly 'Pictish'. I cant believe that anyone would seriously take from these details that, amazingly, and non-intuitively, American Indian culture has appeared, wholesale, and without reason or cultural drift, on the coast of a carefully constructed fantasy version of Eurasia
