Fossil Collecting Results . . .

From
Date
Some responses to John Moffitt's lengthy discussion of the Larsen/Black
Hills Institute/"Sue" the T. rex ordeal / s.n.a.f.u.;


>Now with most the basic facts out of the way, I have some opinions on
>all of this.

        John lays out a lot of details on the government raid and
subsequent trial. Sure, these are "basic facts." But he forgot to mention
the extended history (in cyclical or allegoriacal time, not linear time) of
the land on which this meat-eaters bones were unearthed. That history
includes the decimation of nearly sixty million buffalo, the basic food
source of many plains (and displaced) native peoples. John also forgot to
include the nearby sites of Wounded Knee and (a little further out) Sand
Creek, both witness to U.S. Cavalry massacres of first nations unarmed
women, children, and elders (Lakota and Cheyenne & Arapahoe, respectively).
And, as you know from school, the list goes on . . .

>I have been watching in great detail, for several years now, the various
>government and private activities surrounding the dinosaur fossil
>called Sue. I have been so mad about various aspects of this so it's hard
>to say that I'm actually any more angry after reading that news article.
>Suffice to say that my anger remains unabated.

        Folks, maybe (just maybe) you now have a small flavor of the
despair which "Indians" on reservations (read: "third-world villages WITHIN
the U.S.A.") feel almost every day. Watching the rug pulled out from under
their feet, with nothing to say or do. Kind of intimidating isn't it?

>Let's just try to look at the final score.

        Yes, let's do that . . .

>Now one of the best fossil collection and preparation groups in the
>country and maybe in the world, has been financially destroyed and
>turned into criminals. And this was after getting permission to look on
>a rancher's land, finding something, getting further permission from
>that same rancher to excavate and remove that fossil, paying the
>rancher $5000 for those rights, offering to do all of the expenses and
>preparation at their own cost, and then donating the fossil to a local
>museum. 

        The local rancher is native, part of a band, and therefore
responsible to a local band government or chief. As far as can be seen, the
Black Hills Institute did not go through the proper local native channels.
Sure, hold out $5,000 under the nose of a struggling rancher, farmer, or
paleontologist and they aren't going to argue too loudly about it. Of
course, we all know from the beginning that Sue was worth several orders of
magnitude more money than was tossed at the natives who traditionally
occupied these lands. The important thing is to get that damn carcass outta
the ground and into a museum, though; nevermind that this would be just
another act of "high plains robbery" by us civilized (and well-educated, I
think) caucasian european-types on the nobel savages which opposed manifest
destiny.

        John, I know you didn't mean things the way I've stated them, but
you, me, and everyone out there in Cyberland have got to watch what we say,
and how we say it. If Sue ends up being sold to a private interest in the
Far East, then maybe this will be a hard lesson for us. And we had best
learn it. It's easy for use to gripe and moan about our "mistreatment", but
it is pure myopia to do so without looking at the context all around us.
Paleontology (just like a Hopi medicine man, or a Cree sundance ceremony)
is a means to an end; . . . not an end in itself.


Regards,

  TOPHER
Calgary, Alberta